Connecting the Dots

Web 2.0: Is it a question or has it been answered?

UPDATE 9/30/05: In anticipation of the O'Reilly Web 2.0 conference, Tim O'Reilly presents his position (i.e., answer) to the Web 2.0 question.

Om Malik was at dinner last night where the "What *is* Web 2.0 anyway?" question came up and he wrote about it asking for comments. I just left the following as a comment and realized it needed to be a post:

With some of the debate about what Web 2.0 is or isn’t, I also was thinking about the Web 2.0 conference (which I’m attending) next week. After reading this post, I went off to my own blog and looked at all my posts that I tagged with “Web 2.0".

Pretty eclectic bunch of posts. Is Web 2.0 a pipe? Yep. A set of enabling technologies? Yep. Applications? Check. How about interoperability and software as a service (i.e., web services). Oh yeah.

The analogies to a PC or even distributed enterprise I.T. (processing; messaging bus; I/O; applications; communications) is clear. That can only lead to one conclusion: this next phase of the internet is a platform upon which applications are built as well as services delivered (and the line between applications and services — whether on the desktop or within the enterprise — is blurring).

The differentiator of Web 2.0 (vs. 1.0) is that humans en masse are infusing our collective consciousness in to the usage of this platform and its applications/services. In addition, critical mass of use of the always-on-internet has been achieved and the building blocks of a platform are in place.

Karma Katchup

Whether you are Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, have other beliefs or none at all, there are certain universal truths that thematically run through *all* humankinds spirtual teachings: as you sow, so shall you reap. Good works beget goodness and evil begets evil. Searching for and focusing on upside (though aware of downside) while embracing a positive attitude and outlook means that you will sow positive energy and achieve positive outcomes as you journey -- and people naturally gravitate toward the positive and shun the negative. Besides the obvious way to live ones life, it's also good business.

These thoughts have come to me once again as I've been personally involved in far too many situations in the last twelve months -- and have been observant of other ones and watched companies behave as they build, acquire and develop -- that make this universal truth self-evident. A good technology company example is Google's "Do no evil" mission statement. It is indicative of how they expect their Googler's (or whatever they call themselves) to approach every situation, business model, technology choice, hiring decision and path choices they make as the Google journey progresses. They've made some missteps and done some things that have caused people to be taken aback...but their do no evil mantra seems to be making all of them drive toward the good and the positive and so far the marketplace has embraced them.

There are other companies out there that have built monopolies, for example, that have certainly sowed bad karma and whose corporate culture is to win at any cost and crush or "kill" the competition. Are setting good intentions (vs. doing evil) and winning mutually exclusive? I don't think so. I believe you can do both and the long term health and viability of an enterprise mandates good intentions and positive energy investment is made in products, people and especially customers. IBM is a great example of a company that is clearly 100% focused on what they need to do to win without what, in my opinion, is anything that smacks of evil. Apple is another that is focused on trying to do the right thing (offering balanced digital rights management knowing that it's table stakes to get-in-the-game with the record companies so iTunes could be born) while ensuring their business stays healthy.

If you work within the corporate world, you've undoubtedly experienced people practicing manipulations thinking that it would place them in a power and/or winning position. I've experienced this many times in my career and it barely phases me at this point in my life. Why? Because I've seen again-and-again that the negative energy that results from this behavior *always* comes back to the person at some point and is worse than any vengeful act I could ever deliver. Plus, the negative energy that would swirl within me while performing acts of that type would compound the negative and I refuse to go down that path.

Years ago a friend of mine came up with a descriptor of what happens when some person or company set and delivered on good intentions or received their comeuppance after clear "Let's go ahead and do evil" intentions. He called it "karma katchup" or having the karma you sowed finally catch up with you. It always does and the good catches up...as does the evil.

A Wikipedia article on Karma states, "Karma literally means "deed" or "act" and more broadly names the universal principle of cause and effect, action and reaction which governs all life. Karma is not fate, for man acts with free will creating his own destiny. According to the Vedas, if we sow goodness, we will reap goodness; if we sow evil, we will reap evil. Karma refers to the totality of our actions and their concomitant reactions in this and previous lives, all of which determines our future. The conquest of karma lies in intelligent action and dispassionate reaction."

Karma katchup. Reminds me to be watchful of what I sow both personally and professionally.

Connecting the Dots podcast for the week of September 26, 2005

Topics are: GoogleNet, Personalization, Recommendation, Predictive Analytics & Serendipity. I asked and you responded. Last show I requested that people email me and tell me if there was an interest in a multi-topic podcast...or a single one. Doing a single one won out.

So this week's show covers a main theme about our pals at Google as well as some of the things that are possible (and being done) on the internet as companies watch, learn and act upon the data we're handing them on a silver platter.

Listen to or download the podcast 

iTunes 5 breaks my iPod....or does it?

Having used the Macintosh since 1984 (and the Lisa before that) as well as more PC's than I'd care to count, I pride myself on being a power user and someone friends and family turn to when they run in to a roadblock with their personal confuser (to use Leo Laporte's term from the TV show "Call for Help"). It turns out *I* was a bonehead vs. having it be Apple's problem.

I've been merrily using the iPod and having zero issues so was quite chagrined when I downloaded the new iTunes 5.0 and began having issues. Issues I couldn't fix.

I'm on the message boards reading about other Mac users (there was an acknowledged Windows version of iTunes 5 problem) and many were having exactly the same problem as I was experiencing (when I'd plug in my iPod, I'd get an error that it couldn't copy to that disk). Stopped at the Apple store and a "genius" was able to copy tons of music to my iPod (should've been my first clue) and I guessed it was my operating system, one or more of my music files or something. Upon getting home, I ran the iPod updater, trashed preferences files, rebuilt this-n-that, ran Onyx (GUI for unix commands that clean up stuff) to clean up my system, rebuilt my entire iTunes library for over an hour, and none of this works.

So tonight I'm sitting here trying to fix it. I think, "Hmmm....could it be the Firewire cable?". I plug in my iPod with the Apple supplied extra USB cable. It works. I let out a moan like a wounded bear.

Makes me think about all the people posting on Apple's and other sites I visit. How many others' problems could be a simple fix? Or is this stuff way too complicated? Even smart guys like Russell Beattie get frustrated (he's threatening to be a "reverse switcher" going from Mac to Windows) which is more about the level of complexity in information systems than it is the lack of knowledge or capability of the user.

Personalization, Recommendation, Predictive Analytics & Serendipity

Continuing on from my last two posts -- the theme of which was gathering internet and location data for behavorial and predictive analysis as well as the internet-as-collective-consciousness -- I offer up an LATimes article that describes what has been going on for some time as we all have collectively been allowing organizations to "watch" what we're doing online, gather our clickstream and transactional data, try to figure out who we are and what we want and to then monetize the knowledge they have gleaned from their observations.

Predictive analytics is the Holy Grail of the information technology category called business intelligence (BI). It's purpose is to allow people to use patterns of data from thousands of people or transactions in order to make better and more accurate decisions. The point is to be more adept at building trend-right products and services while penetrating new markets. The goal is to drive top line revenue, decrease costs, gain competitive advantage, and all the other things that make a business grow and be profitable.

When at Vignette during the dotcom adventure, we OEM'ed NetPerceptions' Recommendation Engine. It was, as this article points out, a "'Preference engine' (to) track consumers' choices online and suggest other things to try."  It was a great technology and the Web site personalization (which Vignette offered) and recommendation (from NetP) was a powerful combination that delivered a highly customized and individualized experience for those companies who implemented our software and the users who visited their sites. Amazon was an early NetP customer and they've gone far beyond what was, at that time, fairly rudimentary categorization and simple business rules (more on that later).

But will automagic preference engines, personalization and predictive delivery work?

Extreme Specialization

With my kids back in school and having just gone to the parent's "curriculum overview" last night (previewing the upcoming year's teaching and the basics my kids will be learning), this first article in a CNet series really hit home. It did so since I've given A LOT of thought to the internet as our collective consciousness as well as been having profound observational experiences as of late surrounding the extreme specialization the internet enables.

The CNet series is dubbed, "Intelligence in the Internet Age" and starts out with:

A few thousand years ago, a Greek philosopher, as he snacked on dates on a bench in downtown Athens, may have wondered if the written language folks were starting to use was allowing them to avoid thinking for themselves.

Today, terabytes of easily accessed data, always-on Internet connectivity, and lightning-fast search engines are profoundly changing the way people gather information. But the age-old question remains: Is technology making us smarter? Or are we lazily reliant on computers, and, well, dumber than we used to be?

Lazily reliant on computers? Not a chance since the internet fosters extreme specialization.

A GoogleNet baby step?

Starting with broadband guru Om Malik's speculation that Google is building out a nationwide internet backbone network (with WiMax to deliver fast broadband over the notoriously difficult-to-deploy last mile) he's added information today that makes it appear they're pretty serious and have taken their first public baby step.

Malik referred to this FAQ (at wifi.google.com with an actual subdomain!) and a spot to download virtual private network (VPN) software (Windows only, BTW).  At this time, Google wifi is only in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Good thing they're offering VPN software since I've been very concerned for some time about being "naked" when surfing in a wifi hotspot like a coffee shop (email and FTP passwords go in the clear for example). But why would Google build a secure, VPN infrastructure only for San Francisco? The answer is they wouldn't.

There's been a lot of buzz about what Google is up to, especially since they've been rumored to be on a buying binge snagging dark fiber. Lending credence to this point was yesterday's IP Media Monitor article, "Google Reviewing Bids for National Optical Switching Network: Google is reviewing bids it solicited from tech vendors to build a national optical DWDM network capable of pushing massive amounts of voice, video and data very close to end users. Even more interesting is that the purported cost of this dynamic national fiber fabric is under $100 million (not including dark fiber) and can be launched within a matter of months. But the last-mile is, as always, the problem." WiMax could take care of that problem.

I'll go back to the huge incentive for Google to monetize location awareness (which I wrote about in this post). Specifically stated was, "The next big wave is location awareness. Imagine that location awareness takes off since there is ubiquitous mobile 3rd generation (3G) data connections along with citywide WiMax for those times you use your laptop at a coffee shop, in a park, at a client's office or wherever you happen to be located. This will accelerate and facilitate the ability to deliver content easily and within the context of the person and where they are at that moment in an actual physical location. Delivery of ads and social networking web services will explode."

Here's another huge incentive: What if Google could analyze a large percentage of ALL traffic flow over the internet via GoogleNet?  With this kind of data capture and the huge body of knowledge that could be gathered by Google, the reports and analytical services they could provide to advertisers, product developers, researchers, and any seeker of knowledge would be unprecedented and arguably more valuable than most other types of quantitative data ever captured.

Of course, building something like this on such a massive scale (and the obvious regulatory hurdles and major telecom/cable lobbying against it that would result) would necessitate hiring someone that could lead the most highly visible initiative Google has ever undertaken. Let's see...maybe hire the "father of the internet" Vint Cerf to lead this for Google?  Ahhh...already done.

Nikon fills rebate....but how?

My post on August 29th called A Nikon example of why I *hate* rebates was a rant about Nikon *not* fulfilling my rebate on a lens I purchased from them. But curiously a check showed up in today's mail.

Nikon's original rebate denial letter to me stated they couldn't fulfill the rebate since,"The Original Yellow Part-2 world-wide warranty form was not included. Copies are not acceptable." They also stated, "Please be sure to resubmit all materials within 21 days of the date at the top of this letter to be eligible to receive your rebate." Hmmm...not possible since the missing material was in the original envelope!

Even though the *only* action I took was to write the 8/29 post (and email Nikon customer support with the URL), imagine my surprise when today's mail contained a check! While I'm pleased they fulfilled their promise of a rebate since I had provided 100% of the required information, how did they fill it if the original "Yellow Part-2 world-wide warranty form" was missing? Did someone in public relations email the rebate payment group to make sure I was sent a rebate?

You should see my logs of how people come to my blog. I've had numerous people search on "hate rebates" in Google and come directly to my blog and that Nikon rebate rant (on Google my post is the fifth ranked search result). People have also come here from the excellent Digital Photography Review site where I posted in one of the forums...a place where I'm certain Nikonians troll and may have visited my blog from there.

I still and always will hate rebates....plus my name was misspelled on the check which is a tiny error but is yet another irritant.

Connecting the Dots podcast for September 18, 2005

Photography Fest from the Brainerd Lakes area in Northern Minnesota. This Fest is *not* an officially sanctioned photo event of the National Geographic Society. Rather it's three guys getting together at one of the guys lake home in northern Minnesota for three days of snapshotting and getting in to the Zen of photography.

Mentioned on this podcast is Jim Brandenburg and his Chased by the Light project and DVD. (Note: check out the Photography Fest photo album).

Listen or download this week's podcast

Supervolcanoes and Earthquakes

As all eyes have been on New Orleans and the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina, my thoughts have also gone to our preparedness for other disasters which could make New Orleans look trivial in comparison. Earthquakes and other seismic events are the biggest possibilities and several things have hit my radar screen recently I'd like to share with you.

Just so you know, I'm a "glass is half full" guy and not paranoid, but my day job requires that I wear a risk assessment hat -- being always alert to upside and downside while performing scenario planning that includes worst-case  -- and the effects of the below are worst-case...or are they?

Supervolcanoes
Some months ago my son and I watched a Discovery program about Supervolcanoes and the fact that Yellowstone Nat'l Park officials were alerted to a "tipping" of Yellowstone Lake (water became shallower on one end and deeper on the other...like tipping a bowl of water). Seems that the magma chamber under a >50 square mile area of the Park was bulging. Though the risk of a supervolcano erupting in any foreseeable near term future is quite small (though truly unknown), I've been to Yellowstone as a kid and seen many of these seismic areas in person and know how close this activity is to the surface. It was a fascinating program while simultaneously disturbing.

The thrust of the program was that this 50+ square mile area could explode (as it had in the past) as a supervolcano, spewing ash and debris in to the air and plunging the world in to a something akin to a nuclear winter.

What about Cascadia and the mystery of the bulge?

Photography Fest

After buying my Nikon D70 last summer and taking it on our Alaskan cruise -- snapping over 700 pictures -- I was lamenting to a friend that I was bummed only a dozen or so pictures were ones I was proud of taking.

Eric spent some time easing my mind by describing the experiences he'd had (after years of photography and an analytical mind that understands the nuances of the camera) and that this low number was not atypical. In fact, photographers often take hundreds of photographs to get a single one.

Next, I gained understanding of the 2 or 3 "golden hours" of light best for landscape or outdoor photography (right after dawn and before sunset). Otherwise, the temperature of the light was too high and the dynamic range of the photo was minimized (i.e., they look like crap and marginally interesting). Shadows and the warmth of the golden hour light were best.

So tonight I'm headed up north to Eric's lake home. He, his friend and I are going to have a photography fest over the weekend. Taking pictures, geeking out over our respective cameras, having fun and understanding how to improve as a photographer are the goals.

Minimal postings this weekend...

Innovation is Accelerating

Is it just me? Or are you seeing innovation accelerating too?

Over the last several weeks, I've been emailed, called and have read and experienced announcements and heads-up on new and exciting technologies and offerings. There is lots of discussion about Web 2.0 and the internet-as-a-platform, and I'm seeing numerous releases from companies that are taking advantage of the shifts occurring due to increased critical mass of enabling technologies, new approaches and an increase in bandwidth driving consumption.

Here are just a few items from just the past few days:

• EBay buys Skype. This has been all over the 'net and everyone is talking about it since Skype was and is cool. But Skype is based on a set of proprietary protocols and not the open SIP format. Michael Robertson (of mp3.com and Linspire fame) has SIPPhone and the Gizmo project (think Skype on open protocols). After EBay announces the acquisition of Skype, Robertson announces "SIPphone is partnering with FreeConferenceCall to let any U.S. telephone and any PC user worldwide participate in high-quality conference calls with up to 10 participants per call and a maximum of 6 hours per call. This service is available with no monthly fees, no setup fees, no per minute charges - no charges whatsoever."

• Google announces blog search. This has *got* to annoy Dave Sifry at Technorati but is additional validation to bloggers and this new medium.

• Microsoft unveils web site and design tools. Though available for years with Adobe Photoshop, Dreamweaver and other tools, Microsoft was notably absent from the game.

• Yahoo mail is coming. I wrote last Friday about Writely (web browser-based Microsoft Word-like offering) that is really cool...but now *another* company works on snagging a piece of the Microsoft value proposition...Outlook.

• NerdTV debuts. Now you may be wondering, "So what?". It's IPTV...that's what. There aren't a lot of great examples out there yet, but most of the smart podcasters -- that are mini-celebrities or have something people would like to see -- are simultaneously podcasting and shooting video (many in high definition...just in case). Read an article about a new report here.

• Hybrid cars are all over the Frankfurt Auto Show. Big incentive with the price of gasoline.

• Lots of buzz about a new web browser called Flock that will embrace Web 2.0 standards.

Connecting the Dots Podcast for September 12, 2005

Yeah...I like the book and I'm not done with it yet! It's sparked a lot of thought...so this week's show talks about the new John Batelle book "The Search". The show also features those topics which hit Steve Borsch's radar screen this week (which you can read below). Radar Screen is a segment that adds some "color" around the blog posts from Borsch.TypePad.com in the past week.

Download the mp3 file of this week's show

"The Search" and predicting your online behavior

I *never* proffer up my opinion (or do a review) of a book until I'm finished reading it. But over the last couple of days, I've read about 25% of John Batelle's impressive new book "The Search", and am excited about the upside and concerned about the downside of this next phase of the internet.

No question that the last several years have made me fully aware that anonymity on the internet is a myth. Privacy and trust is equally elusive and fragile. Batelle's book does a phenomenal job of articulating what most people who "get it" already know: that the free Web services (Google, Yahoo, AskJeeves, Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo-mail, Flickr, Technorati, MSN, et al) are nothing but crack cocaine to get us to use these services in exchange for enabling them to deliver HUGE value-added analytics on top of the data generated by our collective input.

Batelle starts off the book with a twist as he describes the "Database of Intention" (all of our collective intention revealed through our searches -- the search strings we input, what we find relevant by clicking on it, etc.) as the heart of the value proposition of the search companies. This Database of Intention is just waiting to be mined and is being mined. Everything you do online that starts with a click from a search engine (or every email you receive on one of these free hosted services) is stored and is being analyzed, contextually understood and aligned with those who want to know you, your intention so as to predict your behavior, and ultimately to get you to cough up money (i.e., through advertising -- think Google text ads, AdSense, etc.).

The upside of this is obvious: if you are interested, say, in a new HDTV plasma screen and are on-the-hunt for one, it would sure be helpful if everything relevant was suddenly at your fingertips wouldn't it? If advertisers could target a product(s) to you, your budget, your available space to hang a screen? You'd read/watch/listen to this perfectly targeted-to-you advertisement, wouldn't you?

One of my latest posts contains my thoughts around search matched to location (location awareness). So now if I'm at a Starbucks in Minneapolis and search for HDTV plasma screens, it's not a stretch to have a search company display ads that are within the zip code where I'm sitting at that moment*. With mobile phones beginning to ship with Global Positioning Systems within them (allegedly for 911 geolocator services to triangulate on you if there's an emergency -- but there are darker sides to this I'll discuss in another post), the next step is to offer services that can do the same thing but deliver this data to you wherever you are at that moment.

The dark side is the absolute potential to build a dossier on every single internet user that is a collection of your purchases, what you search on, what you read from that search, and what your intention is (Batelle gives examples of mental profiling that could be exhibited by search of, say, a serial killer or terrorist based on what their searches contain). With the Patriot Act and draconian portions that have targeted libraries, it would be trivial for the government to pressure for-profit organizations to cough up your data -- and these organizations would undoubtedly rollover quickly and not fight. It also would be trivial to know where you are at any moment in time via that mobile telephony device you carry in your purse or pocket.

Even in the first 25% of the book, The Search has provided me with a clarity around the effort, energy (and accelerating market caps) of companies in search -- and I'm going to finish it in the next day or so. It's worth your time if you want to "get" what's going on too.

*UPDATE: CNet reports that the National Security Agency has been granted a patent on determining an internet user's physical location.

The only constant is change: a Seattle example

Here in Seattle for a family event. It's always easy to see changes in a place that you come to infrequently, and this city is no exception.

I first came here 20 years ago and was stunned that real estate prices were cheap in comparison to suburban Chicago. The traffic was light, it was physically beautiful with mountains, ocean, Olympic peninsula, San Juan islands, and Nordstrom's department store was here (one of my wife's favorites).

Today, the real estate prices, traffic and volume of humans that have moved here are pretty crushing. It's highly unlikely that this would be a place we'd choose to live. Still, it's pretty fun to visit though in years past, the area that comprised the 1964 World's Fair (where the Space Needle* sits) was not some place you'd want to be as it was a bit seedy.

Yesterday's adventure included a stop at the Experience Music Project (EMP) and the Science Fiction Museum in the shadow of the Space Needle and the entire area has changed for the better . My daughter, who is drawn to music in ways I've not seen anyone else be, absolutely loved EMP (and paid no attention to its locally controversial Frank Gehry designed building) as did my bride. I found it interesting but not personally compelling. I think my little guy was bored silly.

Next we stopped at the smaller SciFi museum next door (both are labors of love and investments by Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft). My son and I loved it though my wife and daughter did not. Books, memorabilia (like Captain Kirk's chair from the bridge of the Enterprise, a Tricorder, the creature from Alien, the robot from Lost in Space that used to cry, "Danger, danger Will Robinson" and much more) and videos made it a pretty fun experience. Even though my 10 year old son had no context for much of the memorabilia, he had seen many of the movies and remarked at one point, "I remember seeing that one as a kid!"

*It's funny the things you remember as a kid which really makes you aware of change. My grandparents had come to the 1964 World's Fair in Seattle and my Grandma told me on the phone that she'd be bringing me a present: a "replica of the space needle". My mind went wild with thoughts of a space ship or some large metal toy perhaps. When they arrived home and paid us a visit, I ran up the driveway as they pulled up, she climbed out of the care and handed me a small, metal replica of the Space Needle. "What is THIS?" I thought. I was crestfallen but tried not to show it.

Both grandparents are gone now. When my grandma passed and my Dad asked if there was anything I'd like to remember them by, I chose their replica of the space needle since mine had been lost. So being here has made me ponder change...and not just change to the city of Seattle itself.

Cash cow Microsoft Office in jeopardy?

It's got to be tough to be Microsoft with open source at your heels and startups going after your cash cow, Office. Of course, $1B going to the bottom line every quarter probably eases the sting.

Is their Microsoft Office franchise in jeopardy?

First HalfBrain builds a "smart net app" in 1999 that emulates the spreadsheet Excel and later the presentation package Powerpoint (HalfBrain was eventually sold to AlphaBlocks which was sold to IBM). Then some of that crew form OddPost building a web-based email application that emulates Microsoft Outlook (and gets acquired by Yahoo).

Now a smart team of folks have knocked off Word at the startup "Writely." Currently in beta, it still is pretty awesome...especially to be able to create permissions, email those with whom you want to have access, and collaborate on a document.

Writely's "Questions" FAQ succinctly presents their value proposition:

What does Writely do?
Writely allows you to edit documents online with whomever you choose, and then publish them online -- also for whomever you choose.

How is it different than a wiki?
For one thing, it has permissions, so that you can invite only you choose to edit or view your documents. For another, it's easy to use. ;)

Why should I try it?
Because it's new and cool! Seriously, though, if you need any of the features mentioned below, then this could be the tool you've been looking for.

What can I do with it?
You can: 

• Upload Word documents, HTML or text (or create documents from scratch). 
• Use our simple WSIWYG editor to format your documents. 
• Edit documents online with whomever you choose. 
• View your documents' complete revision history and roll back to any version. 
• Publish documents online to the world, or to just who you choose. 
• Download documents to your desktop as Word, HTML or zip.

Do you offer a version I can put on my own server?
We're working on it. If you'd like to participate in our beta program, click here to tell us.

Security and sensitive data controls will be the hurdle over which all web enabled applications must vault to break in to the enterprise -- so that last question is key. But is that even the target market? Or are the tens of millions of daily Office users -- tired of emailing around documents and trying to maintain some semblance of version control -- the market? Lawyers from two different companies going back-n-forth over document iterations and redlining? Inside salespeople tweaking proposals collaboratively with the customer? Project managers working with their outsourced group in India on joint plan development? Teachers that want to post curricula or schedules with blank placeholders for parent involvement.

The more I ponder all the uses, the more enthused that I become that these Writely guys have hit a hot button. It will remain to be seen if some firm, willing to compete headon with Microsoft, will buy them and assemble an online competitive offering to Office.

Nano-machines achieve huge breakthrough

Everywhere I look I'm seeing that we're on the threshold of major advances in medicine, space, technology and, especially, in the field of nano scale technologies.

A major advance in nanotechnology with far-reaching potential benefits in medicine and other fields is to be announced at this year’s BA Festival of Science in Dublin. 

According to this, this and this article,

"Scientists have built molecules that can, for the first time ever, move larger-than-atom-sized objects. Constructing molecular machines capable of performing relatively large-scale mechanical tasks has never been achieved before.

Now, in an unprecedented breakthrough, chemists at Edinburgh University have used light to stimulate man-made molecules to propel small droplets of liquid across flat surfaces and even up 12° slopes against the force of gravity. This is equivalent to tiny movements in a conventional machine raising objects to over twice the height of the world’s tallest building.

This significant step could eventually lead to the development of artificial muscles that use molecular ‘nano’-machines of this kind to help perform physical tasks. Nano-machines could also be used in ‘smart’ materials that change their properties (e.g. volume, viscosity, conductivity) in response to a stimulus. They could even control the movement of drugs around the body to the exact point where they are needed."

The real news from Apple's announcement today

With the rampant rumors about today's Apple announcement being solely focused on the iTunes/Motorola phone (and that Cingular would be the sole provider), there was alot of disappointment with this minimally exciting announcement. Coupled with the rumors about an "iPhone" was speculation about the upcoming Apple Expo in Paris and why Steve Jobs cancelled his keynote -- and that this event was going to be a monumentally exciting one and the buzz was quite loud. (Here's my blog post about this iPhone from April).

The phone was rolled out. So was a new, tiny "iPod nano". My thought? Jobs was going to rollout the iPod nano in Paris but -- with all the rumors and pictures of the ROKR Motorola phone and Cingular deal already leaked all over the 'net -- he had no choice but to deliver something new and fresh at today's event. All-in-all the buzz is pretty lukewarm.

To me, the real news came in the form of statistics on the overwhelming market share Apple enjoys. MacWorld has a recap online that spells out the following very interesting facts which I've added opinion around with "SB" preceding it...

LED lighting...reducing energy consumption by 10%

After a few conversations with people about the price of gasoline spurred more thinking around our nation's dependence on foreign oil (or oil at all for that matter!), my thoughts turned to Light Emitting Diodes (LED's). Knowing that they were being used currently for atypical and unique applications instead of general purpose lighting for now, I nonetheless have been increasingly enamored by them because, of all things, a "never needs batteries" windup flashlight!

On the 5th Annual Dad & Son Adventure to the North Shore of Lake Superior a couple of weeks ago, we took along two windup LED flashlights like the one at left (two in a package for $19.95 at Costco). They never need batteries, the LED bulbs are rated for 10,000 hours, and one minute of cranking gives an hour of cool, bright, white light. They were very useful.

So I thought long and hard about what I've skimmed in articles in the past year or so about LED's: They're energy efficient and could reduce consumption by 10% as of 2020 (using LED's vs. incandescent light bulbs), the light is at a higher Kelvin temperature since they're a more efficient process making them brighter, and the initial high cost of the current manufacturing processes would be obviated by the length of burn time of these LED's.

Seems prudent to find numerous ways to drive down energy consumption. 10% here...10% there...pretty soon we're talking about real savings and reduced dependence. Take a peek at the differences in LED's vs. incandescent lights:

• How LED's work
• How incandescent lights work

One more thing: I think about how useful water resistant lighting like this would be in areas like New Orleans (though food and water are a higher priority), and also in third world countries where there are an abundance of people that would glady trade one minute of hand cranking to enjoy an evening of one hour of illumination.

Connecting the Dots Podcast for September 5, 2005

Talk about the web host BlueHost and tools for hosters called cPanel and the fabulous Fantastico, as well as items around New Orleans (and the blogger from there called The Interdictor). The show also features those topics which hit Steve Borsch's radar screen this week. Radar Screen is a segment that adds some "color" around the blog posts from Borsch.TypePad.com in the past week.

Listen to or download the MP3 file

My wet basement irony...

Woke this morning at 2am as the power went out due to a horrific thunderstorm. I haven't seen it rain this hard for many, many years.

Since the power was out and I didn't want to open the fridge on the main level to grab a soda, I headed downstairs to get one. Peeked at the sump pump to see if it was overflowing, but all was well so I proceeded upstairs to continue reading the Sunday paper. About an hour later I went back down to get another soda and stepped in half an inch of water!

I immediately proceeded to get the kids to help (my bride is out of the country) and we have been scrambling to get the basement taken care of for six hours so far (and we're roughly halfway done). What a drag for them on the last big weekend before school starts. Also, we were a heartbeat away last summer on finishing our basement...thank God we didn't do it as the expense (and mess) would've been incredible. We can now make investments to ensure this never happens again (new drain tile, battery backup on sump pump, etc.).

Here's the thing: how in the world can we complain with what's been going on in New Orleans? I'll have to throw away a lot of stuff, but by nightfall our cleanup (for the most part) should be complete. People have lost everything down there and I'm losing some old carpet remnants, wrapping paper, some stuffed toys from when the kids were little, and one entire day. Big deal.

So while I've been cleaning and feeling pretty sore and tired, my thoughts have almost constantly been on those in New Orleans and the life disruption they've been dealing with for a week. Pretty ironic this happened right now, heh?

Anger in New Orleans

So many things strike me as I read article-after-article (and watch CNN) about the massive evacuation underway in New Orleans, and I'm struggling with understanding how and why this long anticipated disaster and the evacuation was fumbled so badly. People I've talked or emailed with in the last 24 hours seem taken aback that there is so much anger being spewed on TV and in print from those left behind and who are now refugees...especially with the seeming reaction that the root cause of the delay in assistance is due to racism.

This article had one passage that makes me stop and wonder: if I'd been in the filth and stench of the Superdome for four days with people dying around me, rapes occurring, people relieving themselves anywhere and everywhere, nothing to eat or drink, how would I feel if I was a poor, African American person and was in line waiting to be evacuated?

At one point Friday, the evacuation was interrupted briefly when school buses pulled up so some 700 guests and employees from the Hyatt Hotel could move to the head of the evacuation line — much to the amazement of those who had been crammed in the Superdome since last Sunday.

"How does this work? They (are) clean, they are dry, they get out ahead of us?" exclaimed Howard Blue, 22, who tried to get in their line. The National Guard blocked him as other guardsmen helped the well-dressed guests with their luggage.

My favorite idiom is "actions speak louder than words." As a self-proclaimed Christian who has expressed using his beliefs as a basis for decision-making, courting the political support of others who believe the same, and taking the moral high road to save stem cells (while being OK with the death penalty, Abu Gharaib, Guantanamo Bay, etc.), perhaps President Bush and others will contemplate this one saying by Christ, "Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me."

The actions are speaking louder than the words.

New Orleans from a Las Vegas law enforcement employee's perspective

Been doing a lot of reading today about the disaster in Louisiana and Mississippi. Lots of pictures too.  But it wasn't until I read this on Andrew Sullivan's blog (by way of Doc Searl's) that I realize what a monumental screw up (much suspicion on the 'net that it was intentional) the handling of this disaster has been by the Bush Administration.

Normally I don't harvest all the text from a blogger (but out of respect link to them like I did in the first paragraph above), but this was one of the most powerful things I've read in a long, long time and Andrew's preface and the Las Vegas PD cop's person's missive deserve as many eyeballs as possible:

Andrew Sullivan said, "THIS SAYS IT ALL: Sometimes an emailer says it better than I ever could. Read this. Read all of it. You know why I endorsed Kerry last time? Not because I liked Kerry or ever dreamed of backing him. I'm not a liberal. I'm not a Bush-hater. I backed the war. Initially, I trusted and supported this president to the hilt at a time of great danger. But I was forced to back Kerry of all people because Bush's gross incompetence at a time of national peril was simply too great a risk to continue. Now we have the proof:

"I've considered myself a socially libertarian, fiscally conservative Republican for a very long time. I got along with the idea that I wasn't going to get a whole lot of help. College wouldn't be free. Job training would cost money and time. And I'm probably a decent example of up-from-not-much.

But after watching what's happening in New Orleans-an American city that I've loved, visited and have always wanted to return to - I can't ever vote for these people again.

Being a Republican means that you expect the government to do just a couple things for you and nothing else. Build a road. Defend us from enemies, foreign and domestic. Stuff that would be a lot less organized if we all had to do it ourselves. Everything else is just gravy.

And as we poured money into Department of Homeland Security, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, I thought, "Right on," because some of that money's bound to fall on my head.

Well, something else would fall on my head first.

I work for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. And that means that if something really catastrophic happens in MY city, and they ask me to stick around, that's the job. We have A and B teams and I'm a disaster recovery specialist on Team A. I've drawn up plans with names like Drawbridge and Smoldering Crater.

Here's what these people would do for me.

They would leave me there to die.

Look at the facts. There's no coordination on the ground right now. The city has no fresh water, no electricity, no services. The floodwater has so much oil and toxins in it that it's flammable.

In psychology they have what is called a fight-or-flight response. When faced with danger, do you subdue it or do you flee? Some of it has to do with risk assessment, but in this case, there is no flight. There is nowhere to run. So flight means die. If my choice was to pull a pistol on a truck driver or Nat, Jarren, Jayson, or any of you dies, that's no choice at all.

I'm not talking about the looters grabbing big-screen televisions and basketball hoops. I'm talking about the ones that are chest-deep in water carrying bottled water and diapers. You can't tell me for three days to be patient, the bus is coming, and they're piling up bodies in the street median.

We have known that this sort of disaster could occur for a century. Hell, the tour bus driver told me about it on the plantation tour. This means that we have been able to envision the stark reality of this occurring for a week-the newspapers all said the storm would hit New Orleans last Thursday.

A week to get buses? A week to get fishing boats? Trucks? This is the United States! I read someone who said, "All the people who weren't bedridden, or had money, or had cars left. The people that are left had none of those things."

There are people tonight who are going to sleep on overpasses for the fourth straight night. There are prisoners who will do the same. There are people dying at a convention center because no one will tell them that no one is coming for them, and the National Guard is protecting the kitchens. There are police officers who are turning in their badges because they've lost everything, have no guidance, and don't want to be shot by a looter.

There are people tonight inside a concrete domed stadium with holes in the roof and no air conditioning who were told the buses are coming today, and they might, or they might not. There is no food. There is no water. There are bodies floating through the neighborhoods.

In the UNITED STATES.

Some people say that you can't hold the President responsible for this. Oh, yes you can. Because when he looked over at John Ashcroft after the jets hit the towers and said, "I want you to make sure this never happens again," it was not meant to be specific to "no more planes hitting large buildings on the East Coast, right, boss." It was meant that no American should have to run for his life through an American city. While Americans may perish in a senseless, unforeseen disaster, we'd save the ones we could.

And the Cabinet appointees were mushwits and he could barely speak a complete sentence and we're sending people overseas for God knows how long to help people who are indifferent at worst and hostile at best, but they were going to protect us. In 2004, that's all a lot of us needed. Well right now, it's obvious that they can't.

Ask yourself this: What if Al-Qaeda blew up the levees instead of the hurricane? Would the response have been any different?

No. It wouldn't. That city flooded in a day. And if it were Las Vegas, I would have been in some operations center watching people try to decide who gets to starve to death and who gets to get on a bus to Los Angeles or Phoenix. And there would be no certainty that I'd be on that bus in time to protect my wife and kids.

But one thing sure would have been different.

They wouldn't have had a whole week to sort it out and know what's coming. They were supposed to KNOW this already. It will have been FOUR YEARS next weekend since someone probably said, "Hey, what if..."

And for that, the whole stack of them should be fired.

I've had it. I'm done. And if the other bunch of assholes can't figure out that what's important is that babies don't starve to death here (and I'm not talking some metaphorical goo-goo thing with school lunches and welfare, but real, actual starving) and we get people out of harm's way, we'll get rid of them too. And so on.

Because this is about leadership, not about bitching on CNN how no one's in charge, or listening to Peggy Noonan furrow her brow at the Governor's performance, or bragging that we've sent in one National Guardsman for every 200 people, or actually having the audacity to say that "we had no idea the levees would break."

Today, I saw my country favorably compared to Indonesia and Thailand, (always our traditional benchmarks of infrastructural success) while the elderly die of thirst in the street. We sneered at France when this happened during a heat wave.

No more."

Arghh...more crippled mobile technology

This is old news to those people living on Engadget and eagerly anticipating any new mobile or wireless technology...but because I'm now serious about buying, I was pleased that Evolution Data Only (EVDO) (with 400-700kbps 'broadband' speed) has rolled out and there are pretty sweet gadgets out to boot.

This high speed, ubiquitous EVDO wireless footprint has come to the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. It also has also rolled out to most of the major cities where I travel. With this service, no more wardriving or hanging out at coffee shops to get high speed access. Wherever I am in a major metro area, I'd be connected.

I covet the Samsung i730 PocketPC/phone with Bluetooth/WiFi now available from Verizon. Though my current mobile voice/data service is with TMobile (and I appreciate their international telephony capability which I wouldn't get with most other providers) I'd make a change to another provider in order to enjoy really fast wireless connectivity. I would use this i730 with my Powerbook instead of a PC (PocketPC is a Microsoft OS and doesn't have software for the Mac) but I can use the fabulous PocketMac to completely control and sync this device. I've already goofed with the i730 at the Verizon store and it is FAST over EVDO and has a lot of cool features I'd love to use.

Here's the problem: like all the carriers seem to have done, Verizon has crippled the phone so it's a REAL challenge to make it work as a high speed data modem. The Bluetooth stack does not support EVDO data connectivity. Looks like there is a hack/workaround for USB connectivity but, of course, is unsupported by Verizon (I've emailed Verizon tech support to discover if the USB cable connection is even an official option to make the i730 function as an EVDO modem).

In the past I've simply used Bluetooth with TMobile's network and connected my laptop to my mobile phone and used it as a modem. Works fine, but TMobile's GPRS connection is really slow. There are tons of hacks that people have done to get the i730 to work with the USB cable (PC only) but the Bluetooth communications software stack presents more of a challenge (expressed well in this Engadget post).

Verizon's base level voice package plus EVDO is $79.99 (which makes the i730 go fast) or -- if you have voice but want to buy an EVDO card for your laptop to access the high speed wireless network -- it's another $60. If I hope to stay married, I'm not spending $140 per month on voice/data connectivity.

Why do the carriers do this and why is it not seamless and supported?  It's not like I'm going to simultaneously use the i730 and my laptop to connect to the 'net so they're not losing out or having their network hammered on.  I'll use either one or the other...but not both at the same time. The only thing I can think of is that the bandwidth used by a laptop connection is so large that this is a way to cap usage. The result though is people work to hack the device and the service which does nothing but piss everyone off and frustrate legitimate users like me.

What's happening in New Orleans?

One of my colleagues and I were talking today about the tragedy unfolding in New Orleans (NO) and the mass rescue that is occurring. She said quietly and sheepishly, "Why do you think all the people we're seeing on TV looting, wading through water and being rescued are African Americans?"

All over the 'net have been blog posts about NO police officers looting, buses bypassing blacks clearly in need of help, lack of basic sanitation and clean water, and a level of desperation unheard of in this country.  No question if you have the means you can get out, get help and get sympathy regardless of race, but there is something fundamental occurring in NO that makes any reasonable observer question.

The Interdictor is a blogger in NO that has disturbing things to report. Worth a read and to give some thought about what's occurring down there. Of course, I'm sitting here in my clean house in 70 degree weather and will be climbing in to clean sheets tonight so I'm not going to be an armchair critic or supporter...but *will* observe what others are reporting from the area. Anyone unfortunate enough to be poor, without transportation or the naivete to try to ride out the storm in NO needs our prayers, our help (financial or otherwise) and less second-guessing of the obvious anarchy ensuing.

I can't imagine what it must be like. It's also tough to fathom how NO is going to be able to recover from this disaster *and* plan for the next inevitable hurricane.

Pandora: Your personal DJ

Originally I stumbled across Pandora since it was allegedly a great example of a rich internet application (RIA) using Laszlo Systems application building tools (Laszlo's RIA page here).

Admittedly it *is* a cool example of an RIA. But man...it is SO much more than that!

Pandora is an application that leverages the Music Genome Project started in 2000 by a group of musicians and music loving technicians who, "...carefully listened to the songs of over 10,000 different artists - ranging from popular to obscure - and analyzed the musical qualities of each song one attribute at a time. This work continues each and every day as we endeavor to include all the great new stuff coming out of studios, clubs and garages around the world."

"Together we set out to capture the essence of music at the most fundamental level. We ended up assembling literally hundreds of musical attributes or "genes" into a very large Music Genome. Taken together these genes capture the unique and magical musical identity of a song - everything from melody, harmony and rhythm, to instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and of course the rich world of singing and vocal harmony. It's not about what a band looks like, or what genre they supposedly belong to, or about who buys their records - it's about what each individual song sounds like."

Why would you be mesmerized by Pandora like I was?