Tuesday, March 11, 2003

(getting) Hot or Not?  Straws in the wind. All of a sudden, I'm busier than a one-armed paper hanger.  (Actually I think I am a one-armed paper hanger).  Coincidence?  I don't think so....  Real?  I'm not sure. Why we need a high-tech shakeout. How many high-tech companies have folded their tents since the bubble burst? Not enough, say experts at McKinsey. [CNET News.com] [[ t e c h n o c u l t u r e ]] Study: IT budgets 'anemic'. Market research firm Aberdeen Group is predicting information technology budgets will increase a mere 2.7 percent over the next six to 12 months. [CNET News.com] [[ t e c h n o c u l t u r e ]] There's so much on at the moment -- what's up with the tech world anyway?! [grin] Last week had more events than I could attend, as does this week and some of next. For example, today I could go to an interesting-sounding presentation of ideas and research at MIT's MediaLabEurope in Dublin this morning. Instead, I am already committed to going to the equally-intriguing-sounding OpenApp conference on the use of Open Source software in government environments. This evening has a meeting at Trinity College led by the Irish Sysadmin's Guild, discussing the technical issues surrounding data retention. In between I need to write two to three stories and buy some books at the Irish Times staff book sale. And I HOPE my Apple stuff will arrive in the office, in which case I won;t get anything done at all. [[ t e c h n o c u l t u r e ]] Just had drinks (diet coke) with Kim Polese. She says, "The buzz is back." --Joi Ito's weblog. Comment from Adam Greenfield on March 11, 2003 05:26 AM | permalink to comment I'm at SXSW right now, and I can tell you that it's "back" here too. There's a lot of older/sadder/wiser perspective, a welcome note of humility, and even a leavening of loss (Lessig's talk was suffused, if subtly, by the sorrow of his defeat before the Supreme Court on Eldred), but the sense of connections being made and grand visions incrementally becoming real is as present as I've ever felt it. It's gratifying, and reassuring given everything else that's so very wrong in the world right now. Comment from Robert Scoble on March 11, 2003 03:13 PM | permalink to comment The reason the buzz is back? Cause people are creating again -- many for the sheer fun of it. The valley has had so many innovations because smart people settle here and go into their garages and start tinkering. The other reason the "buzz" is back? Because the marketers and the sleezeballs largely aren't in the mix right now. Well, OK, I'm here. Heh. But, most of the people I'm seeing in these new network parties are creative types. Programmers. Hardware designers. Etc. Oh, and the feeling of the valley has changed too. Now instead of wanting to see the venture capital buildings on Sand Hill Road, folks who come into town want to visit our historic shrines like HP's original garage. The valley has changed. We aren't living off of our exhaust fumes anymore. comments? [] 12:57:06 PM     Social Software and the Politics of Groups. Social software, software that supports group communications, includes everything from the simple CC: line in email to vast 3D game worlds like EverQuest, and it can be as undirected as a chat room, or as task-oriented as a wiki (a collaborative workspace). Because there are so many patterns of group interaction, social software is a much larger category than things like groupware or online communities -- though it includes those things, not all group communication is business-focused or communal. One of the few commonalities in this big category is that social software is unique to the internet in a way that software for broadcast or personal communications are not. -More at http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_politics.html [Clay Shirky's Essays] comments? [] 12:45:41 PM     The Pentagon's new map. Is Connectedness becoming the fundamental heuristic of our era?  If so, it is, in part, a response to the web, and may ultimately be the web's biggest world-changing influence.  But heuristics are not truths, and they have risks.  We who are helping to create and promote the awareness of the profoundness of the heuristic, are obligated to highlight the limitations of this perspective lest we live with their consequences.  Academic abstractions?  I don't think so.... In sum, it is always possible to fall off this bandwagon called globalization.  And when you do, bloodshed will follow.  If you are lucky, so will American troops . DISCONNECTEDNESS DEFINES DANGER  Problem areas requiring American attention (outlined) are, in the author's analysis, called the Gap.  Shrinking the Gap is possible only by stopping the ability of terrorist networks to access the Core via the "seam states" that lie along the Gap's bloody boundaries.  In this war on terrorism, the U.S. will place a special emphasis on cooperation with these states. What are the classic seam states?  Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, Morocco, Algeria, Greece, Turkey, Pakistan, Thailand, Malaysia, the Phillipines, Indonesia.   comments? [] 12:44:52 PM     Brain Waves: Neurons, Genes & Bits. Zack Lynch has launched a new Corante Blog called Brain Waves: neurons, genes & bits.  He covers Neurotechnology and its societal impact.  This wave of technologies will change what it means to be human and drive economic growth any before.  Zack is a head of the curve in defining this wave and a Corante blog should further expose it. It's Brain Awareness Week, go to his blog and use it. [Ross Mayfield's Weblog] comments? [] 12:14:22 PM     Dee Hock on Emergent Democracy. An email from Dee Hock about the emergent democracy paper. Dee Hock, the founder of VISA and well known for his work on leadership and "chaordics" wrote me an very thoughtful email in response to my emergent democracy paper. He talks about blogging, the Internet, VISA, culture, democracy, power, corporations, leadership and many issues that are relevant to our current discussion. [Joi Ito's Web] It is futile to directly challenge such institutions, political or commercial, for they have an oligopoly on power, money and instruments of compulsion. Nor do they hesitate to use them if threatened. However, they will prove to be vulnerable, rusted out hulks if confronted with new and better ideas of organization which transcend and enfold them. Ideas that excite the very people they expect to remain passive. What they cannot resist is the searchlight of informed public opinion. Once the public begins to withdraw relevance from them they are helpless, as Gandhi so ably demonstrated in India. While I don't begin to understand Blogging, your paper set something turning in the back of my mind that whispers it may be one of the keys to the puzzle. [Ross Mayfield's Weblog] comments? [] 12:07:16 PM     AFTER & BEFORE: This is an interesting site in its own right, but I particularly like this elegant demonstration... Astronomers use the same technique to detect movement in celestial objects. AFTER & BEFORE: To see how we scramble pulp, click on the cover to reveal the original 1968 MALE magazine. Click again to return to our updated cover, all about the many idiots occupying the male gender today, like Joe Millionaire. <click through to Java applet>     comments? [] 11:51:05 AM     A picture is worth... Tipping Point - A Visualization. This classic graph shows a Tipping Point in action. It shows the adoption by farmers of a new seed. The top line is a geometric curve. The lower line is a Bell curve. When about 5-10% adopt ( the Bell) the take off threshold is reached and the system "Tips" [Robert Paterson's Radio Weblog] This is one of those "OhMiGod" moments because this is something I worked with every day. The graph is what a saturation binding curve looks like. If you are looking at the binding of a protein to its receptor, you start by adding small amounts of the protein to a solution containing the receptor. At low protein levels, there is no binding. Then, as you add more, you will reach a point were binding rapidly takes place. Then it levels off again when you reach saturation.. The point at which you reach 50% binding is a very good measure of the affinity of the ligand for the receptor. In this case, it should tell you how 'fast' this tipping point was. Looks like it is about 9 years. [A Man with a Ph.D. - Richard Gayle's Weblog] comments? [] 11:38:10 AM     Cheap Is The Word At CeBIT. As CeBit gets under way, the focus this year appears to be on cheap wireless. No one doubts that we have a wireless future, but three years into the tech downturn, people are realizing that this might still last a bit longer - and so everyone (consumers and businesses) are looking for cheap solutions. It's no different in the wireless world. From inexpensive RFID applications to more new uses for WiFi, people are no longer interested as interested in "massive buildouts" and anything that uses the words "capital intensive". [Techdirt Corporate Intelligence: Techdirt Wireless] comments? [] 11:22:27 AM     InterContinental hotels go Wi-Fi for $10K a pop (or POP): InterContinental is testing Wi-Fi at their hotels with a free hour and $2.95 per hour after that. (Hey, that's McDonald's pricing!) They also note that it cost them just $10,000 per hotel to add service, because they've offering it in just the public areas. [80211b News] comments? [] 11:14:15 AM     McDonald's offers meat, potato, Wi-Fi: Cometa's first partner appears to be McDonald's, which will test hot spot service starting with 10 locations in Manhattan, and then expanding to 300 stores in three cities. This is a test, only a test, they note. The service will be free for an hour if an extra value meal is purchased, then $3 per hour. [80211b News] comments? [] 11:11:19 AM

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