Wednesday, October 16, 2002

It's the software, dummy!. Markoff: "At this year's Agenda conference, traditionally an upbeat gathering of the computer and Internet industries' elite, attendance was low and the mood even lower. Executives engaged in a hunt for the bottom of the decline with few seeing even a hint of new growth on the horizon." Dave Winer: "What our industry needs more than anything is software to soak up those cycles productively and not just for games. But there have to be features that drive adoption. " [...] "Software, software, software, that should be our mantra." [Scripting News] Here's some software I would pay for right now: Open protocol, cross-platform P2P collaboration, workflow, notification, synchronization, and publishing software. I would not only buy it for myself, but convince everyone I work with to buy it too. I know about Groove, but in the academic world there are many non-Windows users and servers for all sorts of reasons. I would get something like Manila for our *nix Web servers to help sort out the mess of our Web presence. We are looking at zope, which is both more and less than what we need, but our overstretched support staff is not going to accept one more server OS. Open protocol, multi-platform distributed calendar system (see synchronization above) Google on my desktop, working with my email, documents, ... An entry-level computer animation program (scriptable) with a lean interface for my daughter 9:57:22 PM

A Word for Brainy People: Plastic. The smart brain is a plastic brain and it has a plethora of needs that must be met, lest it descend into stupidity. [...] It was once believed that neurons calmed down dramatically as they aged. But the notion of the adult cerebrum as a hard-wired and static computing machine has been disproved over the past decade. [Wired News] Sure, new ideas still pop up fast and furious, but finding time to develop them is another story. What kids (and graduate students) have plenty of is uncommitted time. 12:27:25 AM