Jinn of Quality and Risk

Geometric growth is an essential aspect of the information revolution, with progress often observed while prices remain stable or even decrease. Some radical innovations may very well accelerate several of the following trends in the near future:

• CPU power doubles every 18 months
• Storage space doubles every year
• Network speeds increase regularly
• Internet traffic continues to double every year
• CMOS image sensors are doubling in density every 18 months
• Liquid-crystal displays and liquid crystal on silicon are increasing panel size and density, roughly doubling every two to three years
• Solid-state non-volatile memory is doubling in capacity every 18 months
• Improved power management and new batteries are increasing effective battery life by about 20-30% every year
• Wireless networks are doubling in capacity every 18 months

 

Wonderful news. We just heard that Saddam has been captured (first at a cybercafé where we checked our email and websites, second on TV in our hotel room, through BBC World).

What is bizarre is that we heard absolutely nothing while spending the day and evening in the streets of Marrakech. The people of Morocco do not seem to share in the joy of Iraqis following the capture of a hated tyrant. No candies or treats distributed in the street, for instance. No ululating. Then we saw the TV images of Palestinians demonstrating today their support for Saddam while burning American flags. 

Infoworld: It seems kind of unfair, doesn't it? First, developers have to understand and accommodate users' habits. Then we have to deliver solutions that add value while surreptitiously encouraging users to adopt better habits. Finally, we have to bring to the surface, examine, and modify our own deeply-ingrained habits. That's a painful and psychologically hard thing to do. But happy users are not the only reward. The habit of breaking habits will serve you well. 

While there has been a philosophical-cultural trend over the last hundred years to reduce society to politics, turning all human interactions into political issues, the fact still remains that the concept society subsumes a much wider range of relationships and experience than the concept politics (for instance, my friendships and choice of wife are out of political bounds). It turns out that the distinction between society and politics is being reinforced through technological progress and in particular by recent trends in software and networking development. I expect (hope) that the cultural impact will be tremendous. Politics, the monopoly use of force in a society within given geographical boundaries, ought to be reduced to a minor, protective role. That's what life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness require.

Ray Ozzie: a confluence of factors e.g. ubiquitous computing, networking, web and RAD technologies, the state of the job market - in essence, loosely coupled systems and loosely coupled minds - have created what amounts to a petri dish for experimentation in systems for social network formation, management and interpersonal interaction.  An exciting time to be exploring what may happen to social structures, to organizations and to society when the friction between our minds can be reduced to zero ... to the point where we can truly have superconductive relationships.