12/11/09
12/10/09
7/30/09
Indonesia 2009
2/23/08
Surfing in the Maldives
5/1/05
Indonesia May 2005
In late May and early June, 2005, I made my second trip to the Mentawais in Western Sumatra, Indonesia. This time with some friends aboard the surf charter Pelagic .
We had a great photog who shot all digital in the water, on the tender and on land. He handed me a CD with all my shots as I walked off the boat: David Collier www.sickshots.com . The best shots he got of me are below.
After getting my share of perfect waves (and damage on the reef), I decided to leave a few days early to get back to work and the family. This entailed a hairy four hour crossing in a tiny hired speedboat driven by guys that looked (and smelled) kinda scary but turned out to be really cool. We hit two nasty squalls on the crossing -- the sky would turn dark and then it seemed like rain and waves were coming at us from every direction. The little boat had no radio or GPS, just a rusty compass. Every time we made it through a full deluge alive, the captain, all drenched, would flash a toothless smile and give me a high five.
Lots of fun. Glad I survived. The swell was a lot bigger and more consistent this time of year. Next time I may opt for the 120 foot Indies Trader IV , queen sized beds in the staterooms and a helicopter for the crossing.
9/1/04
Indonesia September 2004
The surf in Indonesia was at a totally different level from anything I’d ridden before. From the first day, I really had to step it up. By the last day, I was finally getting a handle on the place. I was so stoked about the experience, I plan to go back in 2005.
While I was there, I rode the biggest, hollowest, fastest waves of my short surfing career, 5-7 hours a day, for 11 days. Here are some of Mike’s shots.
7/1/02
Fiji Summer 2002
12/1/01
Lighting the Way
by Sky Dayton
(Originally published after the attacks of September 11th, 2001)
I won't rehash that day—that has already been done eloquently and in abundance by others. And I feel very strongly that the best way for most of us to combat those who would do us in is to continue to thrive despite it all; if it is our freedom and vibrant life that their misguided acts seek to snuff out, we declare victory simply by continuing to flourish and prosper.
However, I will make a couple of observations about the Internet and communication in the context of September 11. I believe that the Internet has an important role in the long-term solution to hatred around the world and the terrorism it promotes.
POKEMON, KOBE BRYANT, AND THE KORAN
One ingredient missing among people who are blindly prejudiced against one another is the free exchange of ideas and communication. Other things may be missing as well, such as religious tolerance or even (as in this example) basic human decency. Evil does exist and must be handled with force, but even evil people require the support of others for their survival. Fortunately, the vast majority of people are basically good. But even good people can be misled.
Talking with a murderous lunatic will not make him sane, but it can wake up those who may fall under his spell. This is why maniacal dictators are so opposed to Western television and the Internet. They make claims about not allowing their cultures to be "corrupted"—but really, they're just keeping their populations in the dark. The worst terror will come from the places most isolated from the rest of the world.
The boom in Internet-enabled communication has already brought the civilized world closer together.It's common these days for us to send emails to people around the world. Through the Web, people of nations all over the Earth interact with one another billions of times a day, and in the process, learn of one another's cultures, customs, religions, dreams, and all the minutiae of daily life.
This communication creates aspects of common reality and an affinity among people. It's hard for prejudiced but basically decent people to support the murder of innocents when they have seen their faces and share a common reality. Even if that common reality is a love of basketball stars or the latest Pokemon craze. Again, I'm not talking about curing lunatics here—only those who might fall under their spell.
It used to be that realities were divided by geography, by the thousands of miles that separate people and cultures. The Internet promises to erase the space between people and make geography irrelevant. This is especially important in those places still isolated from the outside world today.
THE INTERNET SURVIVES A TERRIBLE TEST
It's hard to believe that back in 1994 many considered the Internet a novelty. Critics made condescending comparisons to CB radio. The Internet, they said, was just a passing fad. How silly and wrong they were.
The Internet has grown up in seven years and taken its rightful place as a primary communications medium along with television, radio, and print. This was more obvious than ever on September 11.
We've all heard the stories of people from New York City instant messaging friends to let them know they were OK, of millions of family and friends checking up on each other across the world by email, of the Web providing instant detailed information on every aspect of the situation in a way no other medium can. Phone lines were jammed, but emails got through.
September 11 has passed, and we're still here. The Internet is still here, and its value to our culture is greater and more obvious than ever before. Moreover, the Internet is now an important ingredient in bringing people out of the darkness of isolation and erasing hatred around the world.
More communication is always better. Enough of it will illuminate even the darkest corners of the Earth, build common realities, and even create affinity and understanding between people where there was only blind, ignorant hatred before.
At EarthLink, this is why we come to work in the morning—to bring about a better world through the free exchange of communication between people over the Internet. This is our mission, and our contribution.
10/1/01
Fiji Summer 2001
I went to Tavarua, a world famous surf island in Fiji, for the first time last summer. I was fortunate to be with a great group that brings Scott Winer, associate photo editor of Surfing Magazine, along every year to take surfing shots. Scott is a world class photographer, a great bodyboarder and a not so great backgammon player (which I took advantage of).
Tavarua has three main breaks: Cloudbreak, a reef that captures energy from deep water swell rolling out of the Southern Ocean to produce massive barreling left breaking waves; Restaurants, another reef break that’s a little smaller than Cloudbreak but churns some of the most amazing left barrels on Earth; and Tavarua Rights, which very rarely breaks (to my dismay as a regular-foot). Here’s some interesting trivia: The character played by Tom Hanks in the movie Castaway has to get his little boat over a giant wave to escape the desert island he’s been trapped on for years. That wave is Cloudbreak.
Unfortunately, our trip was interrupted by a storm and we had a couple of additional days when the waves just weren’t breaking. However, when it was breaking, Cloudbreak was firing. Scott Winer took a few good shots of my amateur style trying to surf this epic left for the first time. I envied the goofy-footers on our trip (and noticed curiously that over half of the surfers there were goofy-foot).
7/1/01
Your Health under Your Control
Log on and get answers
By Sky Dayton
(Originally published July, 2001)
As I mentioned in a recent bLink column, I think the Internet will be one of the primary catalysts for these advances by allowing scientists and doctors all over the world to communicate instantly and share their knowledge.
On a much more basic level, however, the Internet will affect how each and every one of us approaches healthcare. Traditionally, we got information about taking care of ourselves from our local medical doctors and other health practitioners like chiropractors, physical therapists, acupuncturists, etc. Unfortunately, no matter how caring and competent our local practitioners are, they can't possibly be fully up to date on the latest advances in medicine or the broad range of treatments and therapies available for every physical condition.
With the Internet, we now have an alternative source for health information. With hundreds of online discussion groups and health-related Web sites, covering almost every conceivable topic, anyone can log on and get answers, or at least be pointed in the right direction.
In the January 1999 issue of bLink, I mentioned a great example of this in the LaGrow family, EarthLink members who contacted us to let us know that the Internet changed their lives. The LaGrows had a young daughter who gradually lost her ability to walk and became wheelchair-bound. For years they went to specialists who could give them no diagnosis. When they finally did receive a diagnosis—a rare disease called dystonia—there was no hope of a cure, until they turned to the Internet. Searching the Net, they found not only Web sites discussing their daughter's disease, but learned about a conference of medical professionals and dystonia patients. A few months later, they found a local specialist to help them—and they found a seemingly miraculous treatment. Within 24 hours of beginning the treatment, their daughter was walking on her own again.
The LaGrows are the perfect example of a movement gaining momentum every day online. This movement toward Internet self-help doesn't mean that the Internet will replace the local practitioner—quite the contrary. The Internet will be a valuable resource for local practitioners. But it does mean that patients (healthcare customers) now have the ability to become better informed and to demand that their health practitioners are, too. Ultimately, this should raise the quality of treatment at all levels.
In a very real way, the Internet puts YOUR health under YOUR control. Anyone can use it to find helpful people and essential information that might be difficult, if not impossible, to find through other means.
As you begin to explore the Internet health resources offered in this issue (or those you've discovered on your own), keep in mind that these resources may seem a little overwhelming at first. There is so much material available. You can literally get information from every possible perspective and every possible healing practice. As individuals and patients, we must balance this great flood of information by taking the time to inform ourselves thoroughly. As I've said before, the Net is a bit like the Wild West. It's not terribly well-regulated or neatly laid out, and it's up to us, as Internet users, to judge the worth of the information we find. But as the LaGrows discovered, the effort spent can bring great, lifelong rewards.
Remember also that the more each of us makes use of and contributes to Internet health resources (through personal Web sites, message board postings, etc.), the more we will help drive the great medical advances which are already on the horizon. With people all over the world searching for truly workable health solutions, the methods that do work, and the doctors and other practitioners who are successful, will become broadly known—not merely those already inside the healthcare establishment. As recognition of these people and methods spreads, they will begin to influence the way everyone thinks of healthcare and they will spur on the researchers who are working for a brighter future.
Here's to your health!
6/1/01
Valedictorian Speech: To the Internet Class of 2000
by Sky Dayton
(Originally published Summer 2001)
For me, 1999 was both a great and strange year. Great because EarthLink continued to boom. Strange because of the stock market euphoria enveloping the Internet world.
There was something in the air that year, something youthful, wild, and intoxicating. Myopic investors besotted with optimism threw money recklessly at just about any company that had anything to do with the Internet. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan put it best when he described investor glee during that period as "irrational exuberance."
CLASS OF MISFITS, MALCONTENTS, AND MAESTROS
1999 was like senior year of high school for Internet companies. School is a funny thing—success and popularity are determined by a set of social laws that have nothing to do with the outside world. Note how there's often an inverse relationship between popularity in school and success in later life. The prom queen bags groceries at the local supermarket, while the geek who never quite fit in runs one of the world's largest companies. (I was a relatively unpopular gawky kid voted "most likely to succeed" by my fourth-grade class—I'll let you decide to which category I belong.)
2000 saw the Internet graduate into the real world. A class of companies was thrust out of their protected pale into the glaring sunlight of reality. Weak, one-dimensional adolescent enterprises that once easily made great headlines were now forced to get a job.
Here we are in 2001 and reality is harsh. Finally! Because when the stock market responded solely to buzz and rewarded companies with zero revenue and zero chance of future profitability, it cheapened the hard work of legitimate entrepreneurs and companies with real business models. For me, graduation to reality has been a welcome, if ugly, process.
DEATH OF "FREE"
While day traders made a killing on Internet stocks in 1999, it was an agonizing year for entrepreneurs with sound business models. Too much capital flowed into too many Internet companies, increasing competition for the handful of enterprises that insisted on approaching their market sensibly. Companies that couldn't find any other way to differentiate themselves competed solely on price, giving away service to gain customers. And investors played along by plugging the holes in their business models with barrels of stock market cash.
The "free" ISP, born in 1999, serves as the most infamous example of this indiscretion. While there is precedent for a 100 percent advertiser-supported medium, such as television and radio, the costs of providing an ISP service are well above the advertising revenue possible today. Any neophyte CFO can tell you that. But investors turned the other cheek and pumped billions into free ISPs. Today, most of them are out of business and billions are lost, but not before, at least temporarily, driving up the cost of doing business for EarthLink and other prudent ISPs with sound models.
THE FUTURE: RETURN TO REALITY
The stock market downturn of 2000, which continues thus far in 2001, has already purged weaker companies (like many of the free ISPs) from the system. And it isn't over yet. But while painful for all, this return to reality is a blessing for real companies. 
Commercial enterprises exist to provide a needed product or service in order to make a profit. Every now and then, the product or service can have a major lasting, positive impact on the world and be incredibly profitable. The Internet promises this combination, which is why it's so fun to be a part of this industry.
The Internet is an entrepreneur's dream. Here we have relatively low barriers to entry (it's easier to set up an Internet business than most other types), a service that is in insatiable demand the world over, and a technology that lowers the costs of doing business in just about any industry it touches.
In the long run, this means great profits for well-run Internet businesses. I've written in this column before that the Internet was still a "ground floor" opportunity for entrepreneurs and investors. I believe it even more, now that the competitive environment is healthier.
PEERING THROUGH THE FROTH
But we need a healthy view of the Internet industry. The press that once lauded anything labeled "dot com," in a 180-degree reversal, now delights in tearing apart all Internet companies and gleefully reports on firms closing up shop and going out of business.
The "irrational exuberance" of investor sentiment that Greenspan warned of has been replaced by "irrational pessimism." The thinking used to be: "It will always be this good." Now it's: "It will always be this bad." Both viewpoints are wrong.
So what is really going on here? To see it, one must look below the superficial froth of the stock market and newspaper headlines. Underneath, there's an undeniable current that has been flowing in the same direction since 1993: The Internet is fundamentally changing the way business is done and the way people interact, every day.
Regardless of stock valuations, financial market conditions, and anything anyone in the press has to say, more people are using the Internet to do more things more and more of the time. Since the Internet began its boom in 1993, the number of Internet users in North America has exploded to 120 million today, with nearly 250 million Internet users worldwide. That's impressive growth by any standards, and it shows no signs of letting up anytime soon. This means that the Internet isn't a fad or a bubble or any other transitory phenomenon. The Internet represents a basic shift in the way people do things.
Since the earliest computers were created, the goal of information technology has been to remove the excess time and space from personal and business activities. The first word processors made it much faster and easier to produce high-quality documents. The first home accounting software meant people could spend less time balancing their checkbooks. The first office email program meant people could send messages to each other without trucks and airplanes.
The Internet is the culmination of information technology. It is a way for people everywhere in the world to communicate with each other instantly. It is an infinitely large warehouse of nearly all information in existence. It is a public forum for debates on every topic imaginable. It is the only medium for businesses to directly and immediately interact with their customers. As it continues to grow, it will be the most pervasive communications medium of the 21st century.
The euphoria of 1999 is now long past, and the pessimism that followed may seem like it will never end. But it will. It takes many, many years to build an industry, and the Internet is just starting to mature. Much has happened, but this is only the beginning.
3/1/01
Cabo San Lucas Spring 2001
I surfed with some friends at a deserted “secret spot” in the back country near Cabo San Lucas, Baja in the Spring of 2001. The day before, we surfed the spot until dark, and when we tried to get our van out to get back to the hotel, we got it stuck in the sand. Fortunately, we had packed big lunches which we couldn’t finish, so we converted the leftovers to dinner and slept in the van. We woke up the next morning to a beautiful sunrise and head high perfect waves!
There were only a few other guys out, and one of them was Chris Owen, a Nokia sales exec who also happened to be a great surfer and surf photographer. In fact, one of his shots had recently landed on the cover of Surfing Magazine. When Chris put on his flippers, helmet and waterproof camera rig, he offered to take some shots of me.
2/1/01
Broadband is Hot, but What's Next? (Hint it's called "802.11")
Wireless home networks and the beginning of "Packetspace"
by Sky Dayton
(Originally published February, 2001)
As more and more people get broadband connections in their homes, we can expect more than just faster speeds and a better Internet experience. The Internet itself is going to change and become even more pervasive than it is now. The next phase of the Internet will be about connecting to the Net WIRELESSLY. And this will create something I like to call "Packetspace."
Right now, the heart of the Internet is wires—there are big, big wires (called Internet backbones) connecting the computers of Internet service providers (like EarthLink) and universities and government agencies, and then there are smaller wires spreading out from each of these, ultimately reaching your house as phone and DSL lines or cable connections.
For the most part, this will not change and most of the Internet will continue to run over good old-fashioned wires. However, the WAY we connect to the wires of the Internet will change.
WE ALL GET TO LIVE IN A WIRELESS HOUSE
Once you have an EarthLink broadband connection to your home, you have a big "pipe" connecting you to the Internet. More and more people are putting small home networks on their broadband "pipes" so that several computers can share the connection. This is a great way to make the Internet more useful—it allows you to access the Internet from more than one computer and from more than one place in your house. Wired home networks aren't easy to set up, however, because they require you to string cables to every place in your home where you'd like to connect. Luckily, setting up a home network is suddenly easier because of new advances in wireless technology.
Right now, dozens of companies are manufacturing computer cards that allow your computer to transmit and receive information wirelessly. The vast majority of these cards use a new wireless standard called 802.11. (The numbers aren't really important, but you'll be hearing a lot about 802.11 in the future, so I thought I'd mention it by name.) Devices using the new 802.11 wireless technology can communicate with each other through the air from 100–500 feet (over 1000 feet if installed in a high place without obstructions), and can send information at up to 11 million bits per second—that's 200 times faster than a dial-up connection and over 10 times faster than DSL.
This opens up all sorts of possibilities. First off, it will make home networking a snap. By simply installing cards in your computers and setting up a wireless hub, you can access your broadband Internet connection from anywhere in your house—take a laptop into the backyard to check your email, refer to your car manufacturer's Web site as you work on your car in your garage, etc.
But connecting your computers wirelessly is only the tip of the iceberg. Soon all kinds of devices, including computers from major manufacturers like Apple, Dell, and IBM, will be wireless-ready from the get-go, as soon as you take them out of the box. In the near future, your wireless home network will connect all kinds of devices: your computers, printers, Palm handhelds, home phones, cell phones, and more.
Take Ceiva for example. Ceiva is a digital picture frame that downloads your pictures from a Web site. I have one in my office, and it rotates between different pictures of my family. With wireless networks, next-generation devices like Ceiva will no longer require a phone cord plugged into the back. You'll be able to put them anywhere in your house and have them download pictures wirelessly over your broadband connection.
Internet telephony, which means sending phone calls over the Internet (where their cost is nearly free, no matter where in the world you are calling), is finally possible with broadband connections. Broadband gives you a big enough "pipe" to send high-quality phone conversations out across the Net. Soon, an 802.11 wireless card in your phone will let you talk over your broadband connection from anywhere in your house, bypassing phone companies altogether.
The 802.11 standard has actually been around for a while, but only recently has it become an agreed-upon standard. Now that manufacturers agree, they're beginning to make all kinds of 802.11 wireless devices and, consequently, the price is dropping. Two years ago, setting up a home wireless network cost thousands of dollars. Today it costs a few hundred. Soon it will cost less than $100.
PACKETSPACE
Okay, so now imagine you have set up an 802.11 wireless network in your home. Here's where things get really fun.
The 500–1000-plus feet range of your 802.11 wireless devices means that your wireless network could easily overlap with your neighbor's. This ultimately means that neighbors can share Internet access by combining the "pipes" from their houses into one big pipe. Suppose you need to download a really big file. Just "borrow" some bandwidth from your neighbor to get it done faster.
The technology for this kind of sharing is just around the corner. Obviously, sharing will be voluntary and selective, and your privacy and security will be protected. But, there will be lots of benefits to sharing your bandwidth. First off, we typically use only a fraction of our available bandwidth; most of the time it just sits unused. With sharing, you might even charge others for the right to use your bandwidth! In effect, everyone with a wireless home network and a broadband Internet connection could become a mini-Internet service provider (selling or bartering their bandwidth). And when half the people and businesses in your neighborhood have wireless broadband networks, it will create a really big wireless network with dozens or hundreds of broadband connections tying it all to the Internet. With 802.11, it could happen within a year or two. And the result will be that all of us will have access to a lot more bandwidth all the time. 
When you walk down the street in one of these wirelessly networked spaces, all your Internet devices will light up, letting you know that you have lots of cheap options for accessing the Internet. Your Palm might tell you that you can now send and receive email over a fast connection (even quote you prices, like "Joe is offering Net access at $4.00/day; Sally's is $1.00/hour"). Your cell phone might light up and tell you that you can now make a cell phone call over the Net to anywhere in the world for $0.05.
Over the Internet, information is sent as "packets," small chunks of information. In this new wireless world, packets would be flying through the air in every direction, finding their way to broadband Internet connections and getting routed across the Net. Anyone with a wireless-enabled device (soon that'll be ALL devices) can walk into such a space and begin communicating with anyone anywhere, sending out and receiving packets of information. That's why I like to call areas such as this that have been saturated by wireless networks "Packetspace."
Packetspace is the next phase of the Internet. On top of the wired heart of the Internet we will have a wireless world, where the Internet simply exists everywhere. All of this may sound a little far-out, but it's coming very soon. Companies are already beginning to make high-traffic public areas like airports into Packetspace by installing wireless network hubs and high-speed Internet connections.
Your EarthLink broadband connection is the first step. EarthLink is here to help you get the most out of your Internet experience now and in the future, whether it's over wires or through Packetspace. You will be hearing more about this wireless technology from us as it develops. The next few years are going to be very interesting!
12/1/00
Shopping for the Next President
We comparison shop on the Internet for books, music, and clothes, so why not elected officials? by Sky Dayton
(Originally published December, 2000)
I don't consider myself a very political person, but I do feel I have a responsibility to study the issues and vote for the candidate who I believe will do the best job for all of us. The only problem is that making decisions like that takes time and effort.
Then I realized that maybe it wouldn't take quite as much time and effort as it used to. With a burst of inspiration, I logged onto the Internet and began to participate in what I believe will become a new phase in democracy: shopping online for the next President.
During election years, it seems I typically only hear about the top two candidates. These are usually the guys buying lots of TV ads, and they are the ones featured on televised debates. Their pictures tend to be all over the newspapers (even if you're just looking for the crossword).
But on the Internet, the view is a little different. Within five minutes of beginning this unusual shopping spree, I discovered something I never knew before. There were over a dozen candidates running from different political parties. And dozens more running campaigns as independents or write-ins. I guess I had a vague inkling that other people besides the Republicans and Democrats were campaigning this year, but I never realized how many.
What's more, suddenly I had access to information about all these other parties and what they stood for. Every one of them had a Web site in 2000, which is probably the first national election year in which this was the case. And it means that researching all of the candidates is suddenly possible for all of us.
After looking at official Web sites, I started browsing message boards where people were discussing the election. Although people spend a lot of time arguing with each other in these groups, they also do try to answer each other's questions, when possible (like, where can I find out this candidate's actual voting record?). This was a whole new resource.
I spent about an hour online, and in that time, I learned more about this year's presidential candidates (mainstream and less mainstream) and their parties that I had ever learned from watching TV, listening to radio talk shows, or arguing over dinner with friends.
This
is what I love so much about the Internet. It removes the time and space between you and the rest of the world. Suddenly we all have access to information about almost everyone involved in politics and the current election. This means that every political party has a better chance of reaching people with their message.
Sure, it may be a long time before alternative parties make a real dent in our two-party election process, but the Internet can certainly help to make this happen. Whatever your personal opinion of Ross Perot, eight years ago he performed a valuable service by forcing Democrats and Republicans to address subjects they most likely would have ignored otherwise. He made the national debt a national priority.
Because the Internet makes it possible to learn about other parties and other points of view, third-party campaigns will become much more feasible, and reach many more people. As a result, I believe people will start demanding that the mainstream parties pay attention to other issues, rather than following their own agendas. Election politics will have to become more responsive.
If every party and every candidate had a Web site this year, imagine what things will be like in four years, or eight years. The Internet will become a fundamental part of getting your message out, reaching people, and getting people to vote. It will become an incredible tool for democracy.
We're still at the beginning stages, but already I can tell that the way I approach voting and elections has changed. With a little Internet research on my part, I can make informed "buying" decisions about who I'm going to vote for. Like most other shopping on the Web, shopping for the next President online is easier than it is offline, and I'm much more confident that I'm not overlooking a better deal somewhere else.