Wednesday, February 19, 2003

Smart kids and the real world. Really long but rather interesting.  I would ask my son to read it, but I he would jsut say. No Way!  I lve it every day~  From  [Seb's Open Research] I  seldom link to Blogdex Top 10 pieces, but this one is just too good to miss. Paul Graham presents an insightful description of the social structure of high school, offering an explanation for why nerds have such a hard time between ages 11 and 17. Basically, "schools have no real purpose beyond keeping the kids all in one place for a certain number of hours each day". Meaninglessness ensures that life in school becomes a popularity contest, a zero-sum game where people who don't play full-time (i.e. "nerds" and "retards") finish last. Makes a lot of sense to me. That severe disconnect between school and the real world is what I hope will ultimately kill school-as-we-know-it. In a connected world, I'm sure kids will find better ways of getting prepared for the world. With luck they'll get some help from teachers. Let them network with grownups for a change! (I know, not everyone wants to network with teenagers, but taken one at a time, in the presence of shared interests, I'm sure it can be pretty fulfilling on both ends. Look here for an inspiring start :-) ) I would take issue with how Graham depicts the "real" world, though. He seems to assume that the world that adults live in is actually pretty meaningful and not artificial. I don't know enough to be sure about this. [Seb's Open Research] comment [] 8:33:40 PM     State Budgets, IT, and the "L" Word. This InfoWeek story is about state budget shortfalls and what that means to IT managers in the private sector. The article says that tight budgets mean that public sector IT directors face the same tough decisions that their private sector peers do. That's not true: they face worse choices. To understand why, you have to understand a fundamental principal of public management: sacrifice anything before you manage the size of your workforce. [Windley's Enterprise Computing Weblog] Spoken as only the ex CIO of a state can say! comment [] 8:06:13 PM     For Sale: A Piece of Mac History. A rare Apple I computer -- one of the first 200 machines built in the 1970s by Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs -- hits the online auction block on Friday. Organizers hope to bring in at least $16,000, even though it doesn't work. By Leander Kahney. [Wired News] Maybe I should have kept that old Amiga~ comment [] 8:02:28 PM     Google don't blink. Here's one for the history books. "For all intents and purposes, Google owns the Web, by virtue of its superior and highly popular search engine." I don't agree. Teoma appears to be as good a search engine as Google. Here's how the Web works. If Google starts claiming that they own the Web, and tries to foreclose, Microsoft will buy Teoma and give something away that Google charges money for. Then John Doerr will be forced to decide if he is willing to wage a cash battle with Microsoft. He will blink. Google will be history. If I had to bet, I'd bet that Google is smarter. They're not going to make the same mistake Netscape made, and start declaring victory. Instead, they will act humbly, and self-deprecatingly, and try to set expectations low. (They may have a problem because everyone sees them looming so large.) They will figure out what the users want and give it to them. They may try to act like a platform vendor, and if they do, they will have a historic chance to do it right, one that neither Apple or Microsoft or the W3C has managed. (Or dead ones like Personal Software, Lotus, Borland, General Magic.) BTW, anyone who believes that Google actually owns the Web should remember that Microsoft owns the browser. Google is a good search engine and blogging tool. We don't know how they will connect them yet. I bet they don't either. Note to Teoma. If you want to compete with Google, you must have image search. [Scripting News] comment [] 8:00:52 PM     Demo: Show's picks and pans [InfoWorld: Top News] An interesting account of this years new technology.  WebEx gets a mention of the one presentaionthat had a slip up and acknowledged they had probems.  But the post notes it worked well at the table demonstrations comment [] 7:57:42 PM     Intel shows mobile processors [InfoWorld: Top News] comment [] 7:47:03 PM     IBM: Challenges in mapping organizational knowledge (pdf). Quote: "The term knowledge management (KM) conjures up a number of images: a customer service representative accessing a database of frequently asked questions; a team of consultants collaborating on a new salary study; or a facilitator capturing the lessons learned from a major marketing initiative. Many firms have undertaken formal and informal knowledge management initiatives designed to improve process performance, increase customer responsiveness and spur innovation. But while some organizations have reaped significant benefits from their investment in knowledge efforts, others have run into noteworthy challenges." Comment: PDF - outlines five common pitfalls and suggested solutions. [Serious Instructional Technology] comment [] 7:44:48 PM

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