Stillest Words

Woods

2009-06-07T20:54:00.000-07:00

Sunday Evening Supper

2009-05-31T19:29:00.000-07:00

One vegetarian lasagna:

sauce: san marzano tomatoes cooked down over approximately 9 hours with balsamic, salt, dry herbs, black pepper.
mushrooms: portbellas grilled, then diced and spread as a single layer;
sauteed in butter: carrot, shallot, zucchini, lemon juice, black pepper spread within lasagna
cheese: fresh mozzarella
chard: swiss, lightly charred on the grill

Baked on one butter lined dish.

2006-06-02T16:00:00.000-07:00

Andrew Sullivan and Time Magazine continue fearless journalism. In addition to covering the seldom told and globally important stories of the Congo, President Bush's hyper powerful executive branch, and others, Sullivan has long been the most authentic, tireless freedom champion anywhere.

2006-06-01T14:05:00.000-07:00

To think that jamming was a thing of the past...

2006-05-31T01:44:00.000-07:00

Mr. Mike Olson's succinct scenario for the future of software describes the loosely coupled, specialized dynamic that I hope will enrich me and other Sun investors: "Applications of the future...will be composed of small cooperating components, each specialized in a particular task, tied together on demand to perform a particular task." Those manifold applications give Sun's Schwartz a crisp one-liner: "Demand for what we build, for the technologies that power the network, will never cease."

If the communication structure behaves in that small, specialized, on-demand fashion, won't the org chart adapt to it?

(via Mr. O'Grady)

2006-05-30T14:05:00.000-07:00

PD's Paul Gullixson relays the local media's Sixth District picks to represent us:

Rep. Lynn Woolsey - Marin Independent Journal, Pacific Sun

Assemblyman Joe Nation - Press Democrat, San Francisco Chronicle, Petaluma Argus-Courier, Sonoma Index-Tribune

2006-05-27T17:23:00.000-07:00

More music--Ozomatli on Morning Becomes Eclectic--for your Memorial Day weekend; it's beautiful today.

2006-05-27T17:14:00.000-07:00

2006-05-27T09:31:00.000-07:00

A small round-up of lively American writing.

"Along the way, though, we had to deal with Cairo traffic, which is to traffic what Iraq is to nation building -- with the added distraction that Egyptian pedestrians are utterly fearless when it comes to wading out into a major arterials, and utterly indifferent to any problems this may cause for the drivers bearing down on them. Egyptians in general don’t so much walk as glide (those ancient tomb painters knew their subjects) and watching a bunch of them weave their way among the cars zinging past is enormously entertaining, like watching a enormous chorus line do the cha cha.

But I wasn’t in the mood for it. "
...

“Hurry,” the cop said. And so we did – out into the hurricane of flesh and metal that is downtown Cairo.
...

What kind of American tourist comes in and asks for a cash advance, leaves, and then immediately comes back and tries to change a small bill? I was acting desperate, and desperation is always grounds for suspicion.

Billmon, All's Well That Ends Well

...at the moment that we need the Congress most, it is feckless, corrupt, and venal.

Jack Balkin, A corrupt Congress is shocked to find a lawless Executive

2006-05-26T11:37:00.000-07:00

My own view is that conservatism is fundamentally rooted in skepticism about the human mind and its capacity to change society. So it's basically resistant to large-scale change, but, on the rare occasions that such change happens, is necessary and turns out okay, conservatives can live with it.

So writes Andrew Sullivan. Yes. Tempo, in addition to scale, defines the conservative resistance: change should be small and gradual. The conservative philosophy applied tends towards 'messy'. Sullivan himself provides the paradox of a conservative supporting a shocking, awesome, massive, and immediate revolution in Middle Eastern society.

Whatever its wisdom or moral inspiration, such a big bang is not conservative. The more self aware liberal, having faith in incredible change as Thomas Barnett does below, finds comfort in the Operation Iraqi Freedom upheaval: "Will this all work out in our favor? Hardly. But that wasn't the point of the Big Bang, simply setting in motion change was."

2006-05-25T13:26:00.000-07:00

ZDNet's David Berlind:

Several television and movie studios have joined forces to sue Cablevision which has been testing a TiVo-like recording service (officially: Networked Digital Video Recorder or Remote Storage (RS) DVR) where the recorded programs are stored on Cablevision's servers rather than locally at the customers premises in a digital video recorder like the ones offered by TiVo and Motorola.

Cablevision should try to settle this out of court with an iTunes Music Store like licensing agreement with the studios. The studios would benefit from centralized DRM and avoid the iPod lock-in that gives Steve Jobs so much price setting leverage. Cablevision would need slightly better marginal terms than Apple for want of a high-margin device. Or perhaps those negotiating hurdles prove too high, and the studios build their own digital storage and delivery data centers:

The plaintiffs contend that because Cablevision only has agreements in place for the simultaneous broadcast rights to their content, it would require a separate license for the network DVR that would see Cablevision storing that content and sublicensing it to consumers. The cable platform, the sixth largest in the U.S., has said it will not shell out a further license fee or share the additional revenue from charging customers for the service.

Either way, the network is the computer and EMC, and Sun lick their lips. For Mr. Berlind is right that "moving all of those terabytes out of our homes and into the cable operators' data centers will require some series (sic) hardware not to mention some special storage management software".

2006-05-23T21:32:00.000-07:00

Information Week (via Rajesh Jain):

Microsoft has two assets [that corporate search competitors, including Google, do not]: its Windows monopoly and the huge number of programmers who write software based on its technology. "This is Microsoft's play against Google--the 2 million Visual Studio users," says Rick Sherlund, a managing director at Goldman Sachs. Microsoft is building into the next version of Visual Studio a tool code-named Atlas for creating Ajax-powered Web sites; Atlas apps will be able to tap into Microsoft's new adCenter auction system for Internet advertising.

That, I think, is the relevant context for the Google Web Toolkit. Do developers become increasingly important to the advertising engines as developers monetize dynamic applications with advertising? Thoughts about coupling rich web application development to advertising?

2006-05-21T13:09:00.000-07:00

Maybe Karl Rove will set up a photo-op in October. The president could come to the Arizona border, assemble a crowd of anti-illegal immigrant activists and declaim, in reverse-Reagan mode: "Presidente Fox, build up this wall!"

- Andrew Sullivan

2006-05-20T13:38:00.000-07:00

"The fundamental difference between us is that I walk my talk."
-Lynn Woolsey, San Francisco Chronicle

No wonder she has no time to coalition build and legislate. Equally comedic were Woolsey's sophomoric remarks in a letter to James Oberstar, ranking Democrat on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee:

"Thank you again for securing $15 million for the Novato Narrows project on Highway 101 in my Northern California District. You won't believe this but I am writing today to request your further assistance."

Check this box if 'yes'!

While Representative Woolsey's opposition to the Iraq invasion and championship of withdrawal has not produced even modest results, her failure to combat No Child Left Behind best demonstrates her incapacity. Unfortunately, Kos' Malacandra gives the standard apology for the Act's disaster: the Bush Administration under funded it and it harshly punishes school districts. Actually, Congress, which controls the federal budget and of which Representative Woolsey is member, under funded it; strictly enforced "accountability" was one of the bill's central tenets. As ranking Democrat on the Subcommittee on Education Reform she failed to command decent, funded legislation. Rather than merely "advocating better education policies", our representative ought to legislate and pass them.

Representative Woolsey's challenger, Joe Nation, has demonstrated an ability to get things done: 42 bills enacted in six years. Malacandra also misunderstands Nation's proposal to correct the No Child Left Behind mistake arguing "he has no plan to fix or replace it". Not quite right--hitting the "Delete" key would be a terrific fix: "I would like to undo 'No Child Left Behind,'" [Nation has] said. "It was a disaster for California. I think we need to scrap it."

2006-05-19T18:04:00.000-07:00

How the union survived without language legislation

2006-05-18T13:58:00.000-07:00

Jim Wicks, Design Director at Motorola talked about the new model of product development used for the RZR and the PEBL. Nail the basics, by addressing business fundamentals including a solid design principles and branding strategy. Develop rhythm by synchronize the business strategies, software releases, consumer research and strategic component roadmaps. Partner and collaborate intensively both internally and externally. Don’t be afraid to tap into inventive talent outside your team.

Amanda May, Adaptive Path

Participating in a business bazaar makes sense not only as a design strategy, but as a life strategy.

2006-05-18T12:13:00.000-07:00

Over E3's seven days, Microsoft pushed 5 million downloads and 600 terabytes via Live; You Tube does 40 million downloads and 200 terabytes a day.

2006-05-18T00:04:00.000-07:00

2006-05-16T22:59:00.000-07:00

Wow.

The Google - Microsoft battle will be sooooo good.

2006-05-16T22:43:00.000-07:00

"Globalization and rampant interconnectivity has led to the rise of vast global smuggling networks. These networks live in the space between states. They are simultaneously everywhere and nowhere at the same time."

John Robb's BOOK REVIEW: ILLICIT by Moises Naim

"Our community would very much like us to continue on the fight against spam, and our community has grown over the last week," Reshef said. "But at the end of the day if we continue doing so, within a few days, major websites will go down. I don't feel that this is something I can be responsible for. I cannot go ahead and rip up the internet to make Blue Security work. This is not the decision a commercial entity can make."

The abrupt decision ends a high-profile standoff between spammers and a tiny startup whose unorthodox methods had seemingly stymied some of the most prolific purveyors of junk e-mail in the world, if only temporarily. For a few intense days, the fight showed with shocking clarity the lengths to which some spammers will go to protect their businesses, and the devastating arsenals at their command.

The lesson to be learned, Reshef said, is that large ISPs and governments need to recognize that spammers are connected to criminal syndicates and that they, not a small startup, are the only ones who can shut down these networks.

Wired's Under Attack, Spam Fighter Folds

2006-05-16T22:01:00.000-07:00

New sizzle: Gecko Turner's "Dizzie".

2006-05-15T23:27:00.000-07:00

2006-05-15T14:46:00.000-07:00

Asurroca seems to have made the call first: MTV's Urge on XBox Live. Missing? Simple portable hardware.

2006-05-15T13:04:00.000-07:00

On occassion of Mr. Robert Scoble's May 2006, a hat tip to one of the best essays I can remember:

I would put my hand on your shoulder now, if I could. This is just the way the world is, friend. You can do nothing that seems reasonable. You cannot petition, or vote, or pray, or complain, or pay vast amounts of money to the Right Doctors, or call upon younger, loving, supporting, relatives for help and expect there to be any real difference. You have one choice, and yet it is amazingly not the choice most Americans in our class actually ever consider: will you participate the period of life when your parents are aging and dying, or remove yourself from it?

...

In the end we do age and decline. And before we die most of us get very sick, we lose more or less of our dignity, and we come to rely on the care of others. Our homes, our health, our social roles, and our abilities are all gradually tugged and yanked out from under us by uncontrollable forces, until we’re either knocked to the ground by a sudden jerk, or left standing on entirely unfamiliar ground.

William Tozier's "Real weirdos, wandering far off in the forest, quite distant from the American Way"

2006-05-14T16:04:00.000-07:00

Etta James sings that hot and on fire "A Sunday Kind of Love" rendition in the Dockers' spot.

2006-05-13T19:18:00.000-07:00

Microsoft's Live Anywhere gets even better:

Progress on the mobile phone side seems to be coming along quite well. I saw demos of Live software running on both Windows Mobile and Java-based phones. That's right: Live Anywhere won't be restricted to Windows Mobile at all. It is intended to run on all major phone platforms and all major carriers.

Client independence? Microsoft relaxing OS demands to get network participants constrasts sharply contrasts with Cringley's most recent:

What counts is that for Microsoft the platform is the PC while for Google the platform is the Internet and nobody can hope to control the Internet.

I'm selling that view. Though there are not yet marketable products demonstrating the client independent evolution that ExtremeTech suggests above, the early prototype forms show promise. If the financials ultimately prove compelling enough to support Java handsets' Live access as Microsoft says they will, what about other client platforms, like OSX? To the extent that Bootcamp makes that question moot, as people boot Vista on their Powerbooks, Microsoft stands to offer XBox Live services, collect subscriptions, and give access to a multimedia market.

2006-05-12T23:54:00.000-07:00

Business 2.0's Chris Taylor writes about Google's emerging VR software:

The notion that you can create objects and buildings and place them in a virtual world makes Google Earth sounds less like a mapping tool and more like a metaverse. What's a metaverse? Science fiction writer Neal Stephenson introduced the term in his seminal 1992 novel, Snow Crash. The metaverse was Stephenson's name for a virtual world where his characters play and do business. It was a black ball 1.6 times the size of Earth, with a giant street running around its equator.

The Microsoft-Google metaverse contest should be pretty extreme. Scenario: Microsoft executes a MSN Virtual Earth (shouldn't there be a "Live" in there?) and XBox Live Anywhere mashup. People populate the world from, and develop it with: videogame, PC, and cell phone interfaces. XBox Live's marketplace handles transactions.

Can we expect hints from Steve Lombardi?

2006-05-11T17:37:00.000-07:00

Microsoft's XBox Live, Vista, and mobile media integration-- Live Anywhere-- is absolutely awesome. See the cent video here. They have to get Vista out for Christmas. Suddenly, people have a reason to buy a Vista operated PC for their home; if they act on the incentive, the Live network's community would make PS3 obsolete. (Wii takes a niche.) Financially, Microsoft created for itself opportunities for service subscriptions on top of the initial Vista license. Nice.

What are the fun, experiential games without your friends? Unused? myspace suggests people want to play what other people play--not necessarily the most creative, sensorific software. myspace might even be a downright horrible, unnecessary click factory. Additionally, users' sunk costs in hardware and high switching costs (min. ~$300) reinforces Microsoft's network effect; the free products in myspace's low-cost, no-investment market create vulnerability.

Interestingly, I didn't see any memeorandum coverage--did I miss it?

2006-05-05T19:18:00.000-07:00

Headline of the Day: Video: Derby-goers sport outrageous hats

2006-05-04T12:14:00.000-07:00

Mr. Marc Hedlund asks: "Is catching up with Google better, or worse, for Microsoft's data centers?" In so doing he relates Mr. Greg Linden's statement about Microsoft's data center building:

This spending [for data centers] is an explicit part of Microsoft's strategy in the search war. In a Fortune article, Microsoft CTO Ray Ozzie said that the cost of building these massive online clusters is a huge barrier to entry and that 'the people who could build a viable [Web] services infrastructure of scale are companies that have both the will and the capacity to invest staggering amounts of money.'

A complex system crash project, comrades? The above does give the initiative a sort of 5 year plan hue. In Microsoft's defense, the staggering amount of money may be earmarked to support long, organic development of resilient systems rather than a breakneck one-off for final victory. (p=.40)

see also, Information Architecture as the Company

2006-05-04T00:33:00.000-07:00

Microsoft's Mr. Steve Ballmer seems to not understand the advertising market. Mr. Ballmer: You want to attract publishers that will carry advertisements you serve to them. Promise to share a better part of revenue than Google's Adsense promises. If you pay the publishers more, they will run your advertisements and not Google's. Finding that many publishers run Microsoft-served advertisements, and wishing to reach those publishers' audiences, advertisers will pay you for your ad-serving service showering you with money.

Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer, 50, is courting ad agencies including Seattle's Avenue A Razorfish, saying those customers are as important as developers who create software for the Microsoft's Windows operating system.

Once, ``I'd say developers, developers, developers, developers, but not any more, baby; it's advertisers, advertisers, advertisers,'' Ballmer said at an Avenue A client meeting in March in Florida, while running around the stage and punching the air.

Publishers, publishers, publishers. For God's sake, Scoble.

2006-05-03T22:48:00.000-07:00

The advertising wars between Amazon and Google keep ramping up as evidenced by the below post from the Amazon Web Service Team:

TicTap Contextual Ads: "Early this morning I received an email from Alex Choo over at TicTap.

Alex wanted me to be among the first to know about TicTap's new Contextual Ads. The new system uses ECS to show very attractive contextually relevant ads in sidebar form. Each ad block can display up to 50 products, supplanted by a very stylish mouseover popup for each product.

Amazon seems to be cultivating a strong developer community among publishers, a key constituency, in the clash. That group is the equivalent to Google's AdSense publishers. But what about the coin's other side? ZShops and Marketpalce suppliers--or the Adwords analog? What kind of community development is Amazon doing there?

(PS: Can we get some more addressable URLs at Google Finance? Or Morningstar?)

2006-04-28T16:33:00.000-07:00

Innovation is absolutely flourishing! If you cut through the fog and the noise, we are really in the midst of a revolutionary time. This is what Florence must have felt like during the Renaissance.

Vinnie Mirchandani

2006-04-28T10:00:00.000-07:00

ACLU:

When former members of the prosecution characterize the Commission system as a "fraud on the American people"; when a Commission member, sitting as judge and jury, concedes under questioning that he is unfamiliar with the Geneva Conventions; when the Commissions feature the extraordinary spectacle of a shouting match between two colonels in the U.S. military – one the Presiding Officer, the other defense counsel – over the lack of clear guidelines for these proceedings; the problem is not one of communications.

(via Andrew Sullivan of Time Magazine)

2006-04-27T23:04:00.000-07:00

Over half of 360 consoles are connected to Xbox Live.

2006-04-27T14:12:00.000-07:00

Iran: Kurds in Iran

2006-04-27T11:45:00.000-07:00

Iran: Kurds in Iran: "Operations are already underway. ABC:

Iranian forces shelled Iranian Kurdish rebel positions inside mountainous northern Iraq early on Friday to repel an attack, an Iraqi Kurdish official said. 'This morning Iranian Kurdish fighters infiltrated the border into the Iranian side and the Iranian army bombed the area and repelled them. The shelling hit Iraqi land at Sidakan,' said Saadi Pira, an official in Iraq's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) party.

-John Robb

2006-04-25T11:58:00.000-07:00

"the demand for network computing technology will never decline"
-Jonathan Schwartz

Instaneous Military-Publishing System

2006-04-24T01:17:00.000-07:00

Washington Post:

Hoekstra said his committee was planning hearings on al-Qaeda's Internet activities shortly after Congress returns from its Easter recess. "They use the right words," Hoekstra said. "They use instantaneous response. They are quick in getting new messages up on the net."

A Giant Leap

2006-04-19T13:51:00.000-07:00

Americans fire off 6.4 billion searches in March 06: "Last month search engines had a good month, especially Google. Overall searches are up 10 percent from March 05 to March 06."

That is absolutely amazing.

Startup School

2006-04-14T07:28:00.000-07:00

Is anyone from Sonoma County going to Graham's Startup School? Yeah? Comment for a ride or drinks after.

Hey Ya!

2006-04-12T08:25:00.000-07:00

To 1965 Motown what "Hey Ya!" was to the British Invasion --"Smiley Faces" from the blonde ~~Andre 3000~~ DJ Dangermouse and Cee Lo. Links to three streams and mp3s; "Smiley Faces" and "Crazy" are smash hits.

Overheard

2006-04-12T00:08:00.000-07:00

It also makes you a little sad because the scotch bottle is empty.

-yahoo's Jeremy Zawodny

JCAHO is a joke--now even funnier!

2006-04-11T22:33:00.000-07:00

At my previous job, I argued that the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) was a joke and that since JCAHO does not sanction hospitals, fear of JCAHO sanction would not carry an emergency management software product.

JCAHO is a quasi-governmental regulatory monopoly; hospitals pay the people that run JCAHO $26K per year for a survery that they must pass in order to receive federal Medicare money. While some states retain public accreditors that may accredit for Medicare money , JCAHO's the only player that matters. The Washington Post:

Today, the nonprofit is one of the nation's most influential health groups, evaluating thousands of medical facilities annually. It collects $113 million in annual revenue, mainly from the fees it charges hospitals.

Conveniently, JCAHO also has a consulting arm that engages hospitals at $10K "per" to teach them how to pass JCAHO's own requirements.

The tragi-comedy enters Act II:

Hospitals Now Can Have More Patient Care Violations, Other Deficiencies Before Being Sanctioned By JCAHO: "The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations is defending a decision last month to raise the number of allowable deficiencies a hospital can receive before being punished.

...

Senate Finance Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said the changes were "puzzling," adding, "Government investigators already have documented that the Joint Commission misses too many serious problems and rarely drops any hospital's accreditation. This move to weaken standards seems to be going in the opposite direction of what makes sense for quality of care."

The Broken Military-Publishing Complex

2006-04-10T19:28:00.000-07:00

George Packer's recent New Yorker article gives yet another use case for John Robb's RSS-based National Information Network (via Drum). Packer:

[Major General David] Petraeus is overseeing a group of active-duty and former officers in the writing of a new joint Army/Marine Corps counterinsurgency field manual. “It is, as with many things in life, much easier to explain than to do,” he told me. “But it is very important to get that basic understanding right again, and the power of a field manual is its ability to communicate relatively straightforward concepts. The basic concepts and principles are not rocket science or brain surgery, but they can be very hard to apply.” Counterinsurgency begins, he said, when military leaders “set the right tone.”

In February, I attended a two-day workshop at Fort Leavenworth, where the authors of the draft heard suggestions from an assembly of critics.
...

The question hanging unasked over the workshop at Fort Leavenworth was whether it was already too late to change the military’s approach in Iraq. When Kalev Sepp discussed the field manual with students in his class on insurgency at the Naval Postgraduate School, a Special Forces captain said, “If this manual isn’t written soon, you’ll have it ready just in time to give one to each soldier leaving Iraq.”

The straight-forward concepts are easy to explain? Where's the manual?

Finance's Value

2006-04-10T14:15:00.000-07:00

Take a view of the Royal Exchange in London, a place more venerable than many courts of justice, where the representatives of all nations meet for the benefit of mankind. There the Jew, the Mahometan, and the Christian transact together, as though they all professed the same religion, and give the name of infidel to none but bankrupts. There the Presbyterian confides in the Anabaptist, and the Churchman depends on the Quaker’s word. At the breaking up of this pacific and free assembly, some withdraw to the synagogue, and others to take a glass. This man goes and is baptized in a great tub, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost: that man has his son’s foreskin cut off, whilst a set of Hebrew words (quite unintelligible to him) are mumbled over his child. Others retire to their churches, and there wait for the inspiration of heaven with their hats on, and all are satisfied.

If one religion only were allowed in England, the Government would very possibly become arbitrary; if there were but two, the people would cut one another’s throats; but as there are such a multitude, they all live happy and in peace.

Voltaire, via Marginal Revolution's Alex Tabarrok

Dizzie!

2006-04-10T13:13:00.000-07:00

Last Friday's Metropolis opened with "Dizzie" from Gecko Turner. It's the heat. It's hotter than real estate--fool-proof, 15% annual returns in perpetuity heat. Check out the preview at Amazon here. It's the eleventh song.

PS: Should you buy, please use this link to benefit KCRW. (You will still buy from Amazon, but Amazon pays KCRW a gratuity.)

Is that a purple dinosaur joke, Ms Flagg?

2006-04-05T22:20:00.000-07:00

"Naming a company has everything to do with articulating its value proposition. "Understand who you are as a company, and decide ahead of time what you want to be known for," says Donna Flagg, principal at The Krysalis Group, purveyor of branding advice for clients such as Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Chanel and Barneys New York. "For example, Best Buy sends a message to their customers about who they are with their name."

From Forbes' Playing the Name Game

PS: Merrill Lynch has a chokehold on the angry mob demographic.

Information Architecture as the Company

2006-04-04T00:23:00.000-07:00

A long time ago, 1968 to be precise, a wise person named Conway wrote: "Organizations which design systems ... are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations." So true: I can see this in products from many a company. Except with Google, there appears to be no organizational structure of the product.

Don Norman says that like it's necessarily a bad thing!? Show me a complex adaptive system and I'll show you no organizational structure.

[May 2006 update]: Okay, I meant to say an organizational structure that is hard to predict.

Closed Drives Abandonment

2006-03-21T22:39:00.000-08:00

Phil Jones' petrodollar ecosystem to lose developers?

A number of Middle Eastern central banks said on Tuesday they would seek to switch reserves from the US greenback to euros.

The United Arab Emirates said it was considering moving one-tenth of its dollar reserves to the euro, while the governor of the Saudi Arabian central bank condemned the decision by the United States to force Dubai Ports World to transfer its ownership to a ‘US entity,’ the UK Independent reported.

“Is it protectionism or discrimination? Is it okay for US companies to buy everywhere but it is not okay for other companies to buy the US?” said Hamad Saud Al Sayyari, the governor of the Saudi Arabian monetary authority.

via Calculated Risk, via Forex.

Platform News

2006-03-20T23:10:00.000-08:00

Phil why are all your analogies about wars and fighting.
lol, instant classic!

And from Microsoft, what seem like robust XBox tools:

Microsoft today announced further enhancements for extending Xbox Live services with the Xbox Live Server Platform. Using this platform, developers can create their own back-end servers to run alongside Xbox Live. Developers will get firsthand experience with this update -- which provides easier-to-manage and more scalable technology on Xbox Live in the next Xbox Development Kit, expected in May. Microsoft Game Studios' blockbuster Xbox 360 game, "Project Gotham Racing(R) 3," offers an early example of how these services can work; up to 30,000 gamers can easily watch other racers play in real time through Spectator Mode...Developers will be able to tap into real-time Extensible Markup Language (XML) feeds to update things such as weather, rosters or other changing information.

Can Sony compete in a platform war against Microsoft?

And Jonathan Schwartz announced Sun's Grid, and so set the standard for ~~human~~ corporate communication:

Allow me to once again apologize in advance for a lack of brevity. This is one of those blogs you wait a career to write.

Who is Phil Jones?

2006-03-19T11:28:00.000-08:00

Who is Phil Jones? Mr. Jones also drops smart comments around the web at Mr. John Robb's place and his own Platform Wars blog. On the latter score, this comment seemed particularly insightful, even if I'm still working through all it implies:

"... Iran is starting an oil bourse, where people can trade oil in Euros instead of dollars...what I am convinced by is that the petrodollar ecosystem is as much a platform as the Windows or iPod ecosystems are. And that, there could be a platform war fought between it and a petroeuro platform, and if so, generic platform war strategies would apply."

Developers, developers, developers; open, open, open? (Whither the port deal?)

But returning to Mr. Jones, it's a recurring pleasure to wander through the internets and find a spot he too visited and left greatly enriched.

Emergency Response Software

2006-03-10T22:51:00.000-08:00

One of my biggest regrets at PortBlue was that I didn't advocate free standards enthusiastically enough. If HIRS--PortBlue's emergency response software--had them, people could easily use it with their other tools and with other people. Those advantages would improve preparedness and response, and save lives. Further, if HIRS published data in a free standard and people could cheaply and easily use it with other systems, more people would buy given those advantages. Open drives adoption.

Hospitals, governments and others purchasing emergency response software and communication software should demand open data standards, but which? Are CAP, EM-XML, EDXL suspended in animation? If you have knowledge about people and organizations using these standards, please add them to the Open Emergency Response map. The federal governement uses purse power to pimp National Information Exchange Model:

The NIEM 0.1 establishes a single standard Extensible Markup Language (XML) foundation for exchanging information between DHS, DOJ, and supporting domains, such as Justice, Emergency Management, and Intelligence. The base technology for the NIEM is the Global JXDM. The NIEM will leverage both the extensive Global JXDM reference model and the comprehensive Global JXDM XML-based framework and support infrastructure.

"I'm from the government and I'm here to help."

Mr. Dave Winer ought to align his pulpit at this problem, and bully.

Parsing Too Finely

2006-03-10T22:08:00.000-08:00

Best of Bost Worlds, and Brad Delong in seconding it, parse Andrew Sullivan too finely. Mr. Sullivan's real offense is to political language. Operation Iraqi Freedom was a revolutionary war. Conservatives do not support revolutions. Yet Mr. Sullivan continues referring to himself as a conservative. Stop the madness, Sully!

Overheard

2006-02-23T11:06:00.000-08:00

Ari Miller: "Actually, LA Java Users was not cancelled on account of Valentine's Day."

Leslie Smith: "I need more functionality."

prospective investor: "The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay liquid."

David Refsland on Google Talk: "Off the record? They know all the good stuff happens off the record; 'off the record' just means flagged for special review."

Open Emergency Response

2006-02-19T20:28:00.000-08:00

The above Wayfaring/Google map shows local emergency response information. Anyone may edit it. Here's a wide-screen version. To contribute, please register with Wayfaring here.

IT Metaphors and the International Political System

2006-02-19T18:21:00.000-08:00

I spent this morning preoccupied with thoughts of Barnett's and Robb's competing IT-informed international security models. Tom Barnett describes the international political system in terms of a Big Blue Leviathan force that big bangs bankrupt states and system administers regions into modernity; John Robb models a fast, cheap, and out of control counterpoint that levels the state -individual heirarchy into social inter-networks. This morning's preoccupation was not by choice, and I blame Jonathan Schwartz.

For the third time I'm listening to Schwartz's Open Source Business Conference talk. The IT ecosystem he describes resembles Robb's model significantly more than Barnett's. "The big wave in the marketplace to me...is individuals getting involved in making technology decisions and that's a shift that is fundamentally changing the job of a CIO and it is fundamentally changing purchasing patterns." Exchanging "technology decisions" for "strategic decisions" and "purchasing patterns" for "political patterns" approximates the paradigm that Robb short-hands to "global guerillas", and sees evidenced in groups as politically oppossed as MS-13 to the American Minute Men. Meanwhile, Barnett's Big Bang/Big Install in Iraq continues clocking billable hours amid what seems like a strong nih psychology and persistent open-source competition. IT companies facing similar pressures are countering by opening their own source, as does Schwartz's Sun, or acquiring.

Ning and the Business Mash Up

2006-02-09T23:14:00.000-08:00

I really hope that folks at Ning read Phil Waineright. Ning should be on AppExchange ASAP. Get the security and SLAs battle-ready: make a big play on the web 2.0 world of work.

Marc Canter

2006-02-01T20:06:00.000-08:00

More evidence that Marc Canter is probably the coolest cat on the planet.

Joel III

2006-01-04T23:58:00.000-08:00

Joel III,
originally uploaded by ericranderson.

This is my main man, Joel Brown. We were playing cards at Pat's house. He must have been laying it down.

Waineright on Google

2005-12-13T07:34:00.000-08:00

This morning Phil Waineright on how Google's advertising network keeps it in the game, even if Alexa-based services take search market share: "Yes, that's right, an Alexa-driven search engine that's funded by Google-driven ads. At a stroke, it becomes obvious that Google's wealth doesn't come from the fact that it's a search engine funded by advertising. It comes from the fact that it's a pay-per-click contextual advertising engine, which also happens to run its own search engine."

Waineright, like Gates below, decouples Google's advertising network from its search software. What keeps Google in the game? The reach that its contextual advertising engine offers advertisers and the attractive revenue sharing terms it offers third-party publishers. So what happens when a competitor with credible technology offers third-party publishers better terms, which is to say more revenue, to carry its advertisements? A payday for publishers. How does paying users fit into this market?

Search Battles and Advertising Wars

2005-12-12T19:56:00.000-08:00

Wired's Chris Anderson, and others, comment on Microsoft's plan to pay users to search using Microsoft's services. That plan immediately impressed me, especially since it supports Jonathan Schwartz's claim that companies will soon pay people to use their software. Schwartz at Supernova 2005: "We've gone from you pay for a product, you pay to access the service, to the service is free. What's the next step? The next step is the service pays you."

Presumably, Microsoft will pay, well, you in order to win search software market share. But paying you in order to win more of the search software market doesn't necessarily earn revenue for Microsoft. As Gates argues: "Google's business model is not based on free software. Their business model is based on advertisements from which they make a lot of money." Gates, rightly I think, decouples search software from Google's lucrative advertising network built with AdSense on third party publications. How does buying market share in the search software market create revenue opportunities in the market where the money is?

Clothes Rack

2005-11-30T23:19:00.000-08:00

Clothes Rack
Originally uploaded by ericranderson.

I took this picture in beautiful Coffee Bay, South Africa.

A National Information Network

2005-09-19T23:33:00.000-07:00

With momentum in the consumer market, what is podcasting's role in the enterprise?

A year and a half ago, John Robb gave the specifications for a National Information Network. His proposal for hospitals, intelligence officers, soldiers, and first responders to exchange information states that the network must feature:

A decentralized architecture for publishing and consuming information (via Really Simple Syndication -- RSS).
Real-time information flow through the use of a search engine (ie. Google appliances) and prompted indexing (through weblog pings to the search engine when new posts are published).
Ad hoc connections and information flow through RSS subscriptions (an RSS aggregator ala Bloglines, NewsGator, Radio, or Technorati).
Scalable systems -- already demonstrated via the millions of weblogs on the Web today.

Writing before podcasts’ explosion, he didn’t write about podcasting specifically, but he does note that blogging technologies and RSS enclosures support multiple data types. Podcasting in that National Information Network might be used to transfer audio for analysis (eg interrogations, battlefield conversations) or audio to be translated. Subsequent analyses and translations may be republished to the network.

Nintendo Revolution

2005-09-17T16:19:00.000-07:00

Yeah, but what would it do for the browsing experience?

Drag-and-drop becomes more fun.

It might be fun to "play tennis" with Amazon serving books, movies, and wares. Crush unwanted widgets down the line; drop shot Fly or Die into your shopping cart. E-commerce as sport.

Update September 23, 2005: This excellent interface from Etsy is a good example of the three-dimensional, "serving" browsing experience outlined above. Etsy's interface is so interactive and the browsing experience so novel that equally fresh hardware, perhaps the Revolution or something Revolution-like, could enrich it even more. In any case, Etsy's experimental interface and its browsing paradigm feels more like a game than an e-commerce application. How might we extend that model?

Today, Mr. John Robb writes about "creat[ing] a company that produces real world services through a game interface." Does hardware such as Nintendo's make such companies more achievable? Are these consumer hardware products with game interfaces sufficiently powerful to drive the tele-robotics services that IBM's Jim Spohrer talks about here (about minute 31)?

Intelligent Design

2005-09-14T15:40:00.000-07:00

As I begin this weblog, I'd like to thank Mr. Stephen O'Grady at the ever-excellent RedMonk for introducing me to blogging and its attendant technologies about a year ago. Hitherto, I had read the web manually; from then on, in an automated fashion, as Mr. Winer ably explained last week. I still look forward to each tecosystem post.

Here I'll keep notes on political and technological ecosystems. Mr. O'Grady's combination of technological and ecological concepts immediately endeared me to him. The fusion reminded me of a chapter called "On Tools" in a book and by an author who's names I've forgotten. (Help.) The argument that the hand-ax changed humanity as much as humanity changed the stone for the axe particularly impressed me. Axes changed our understanding of ourselves vis-a-vis the ecosystem: fearsome predators became our food and the old power balance gave way to our global dominance. The hand-ax's success in that history enabled new tools. Hand-axes became fossils. Though rigor nourishes and keeps us healthy, rhetoric tastes good: "The killer app in the technological ecosystem becomes prey as the new ecosystem that it created, and defined, enables competitors to emerge. The guys in finance blow bubbles." I hope you find something interesting here as we consider hand-axes, organizations, new killer apps, and our fearless race forward.