Jinn of Quality and Risk

I can't believe Kamen has revealed two days ago (on CBS 60 Minutes) a working version of the Stirling engine and I haven't heard or seen anyone mention it. C'mon! It's another grand feat of science and technology! The future is great!

CBS News: The Stirling engine is named after its designer, Robert Stirling, a 19th Century Scottish minister. Basically, it is a non-polluting device that plays heat against cold to create energy. It is a closed box with two chambers, one filled with gas. When the gas chamber is heated from the outside, with anything from burning wood chips to charcoal, the gas expands, creating pressure. That pressure drives a piston from the hot chamber into the cool chamber. In Kamen's design, that mechanical power achieves two goals: it creates electrical power, 300 continuous watts — enough to run a few electrical devices — and, as a bonus, creates enough heat to distill contaminated water, making it drinkable. ... Kamen dreams of using his device all over the world. That kind of power can run many home and/or electronic devices, cheaply and for a long time. 

Jon Udell: ...one of the most effective uses of information technology... you might want to wander by one of [Delta's] gates next time you're in an airport and check it out. ... There were two large-screen monitors at my gate. One hung above the desk where everybody waiting in line could see it. The elements of the information display, which ought to win an Edward Tufte award, included: the usual basics (flight number, destination, boarding time); weather (departure and destination); seating status; and more. 

Mitch Kapor: Software, like construction projects, is typically late, sometimes very, very late. It typically takes longer and is much harder than any estimates. ... With Chandler, it its current state, we don't yet know how fast we're going to be able to go, nor how far we have to get to the first release. This is not so much a matter of poor practice as it is reflective of the early stage we are in.

It doesn't sound like they're using agile methods (related to but not synonymous with extreme programming). The idea that one can define a list of requirements, estimate the corresponding effort, and deliver software exactly as predicted is a hallucination. There are two unavoidable reasons for this; the ways in which people ignore these reasons are powerful hallucinants: first, the actual and intended user experience always evolves as software is being developed and as users change their mental models and context; second, interesting software by nature is something that has never been done before, thus introducing a definite uncertainty. One often acceptable way to deal with this evolving user experience and uncertain measurement of effort is to be flexible: choose a given direction, achieve as much as possible within a definite timeframe, call it a success, and choose a new direction based on the new experience — meaning that both the user and developer experience are new and useful for the next stages. 

Bernard Lewis: What went wrong? For a long time people in the Islamic world, especially but not exclusively in the Middle East, have been asking this question. The content and formulation of the question, provoked primarily by their encounter with the West, vary greatly according to the circumstances, extent, and duration of that encounter and the events that first made them conscious, by comparison, that all was not well in their society. But whatever the form and manner of the question and of the answers it evokes, there is no mistaking the growing anguish, the mounting urgency, and of late the seething anger with which both question and answers are expressed. [What Went Wrong? Introduction]