Isn't this the smartest person on earth?

Jonathan Sapir writes about the evolution of IT as he has implemented it through web services. This is a dream-come-true from a vision explained in a Harvard School of Business article from 2001, a pdf which I have misplaced and tried to find many times. The gist is out with the old, custom, local apps, in with the new, synchronized on-line apps and dumb(ish) terminals. Glad to see people following through on the potential.

And if anyone knows which harvard article I am talking about, send me a link! I'm bereft!

comment []11:12:56 AM  trackback []   

This conference (The O'Reilly Emerging Technology) looks like tons of fun, and I hate conferences! What won me over was Russell Beattie, Cory Doctorow, and Andrew Huang (is that you?). In lieu of going, I'll just read all the speaker's books and weblogs. Note to people doing conferences: in-jokes and movie quotes in the seminar title WORK. It's a good idea. Attendees figure the talk will be a fun time if the speaker has the same sense of humor / seen the same movies that they have. Somewhat like a demographic "if you liked this..." filter.

comment []11:02:03 AM  trackback []   

A team of industry-affiliated composers pulled off an acoustic show last night, featuring music written in the classical vein for instrumentation such as string quartet. At the secret waffle party afterwards, I picked up the micronews off of an inviting stack, where the concert was briefly mentioned (yay, Ben!). The point of the SoundCurrents series is that great music is happening right under your nose. Often it gets little or no fanfare, as it's too expensive or awkward to get a run-through much less airplay or other such collective-consciousness embedding maneuvers. Contrast with software, where every little thing gets posted and broadcast for download as long as it barely compiles. Music has one advantage in that it has inherent value even when broken or unfinished. It deserves a listen, because this is the only chance you might get to press F5.

This event was like a "this is your life" for me personally, with friends and associates I've known forever, family, and new friends. I tried my mac joke out on Geoff Ogle (the one where we try to have 20 kids to make sure one is a mac user) which fell flat. Make fun of their market share all you want, the design is solid. I finally met Ben Houge who writes music just like I would if I hadn't gone in to software (luscious, frenetic tonality, adventurous but not cliffhanging). Scott Selfon wins the award for effortlessly sounding most like a movie soundtrack. Also in attendance was Steve Ball (a blogger from before the dotcom boom, if that can be believed), Andrea Wittgens (who I told expressly not to start egosurfing becuase it shows up on the referrer list and makes you look like a chump), and Tim Root (who is the sweetest guy ever, and has a few nasty things to say about "pretty music"). Here's to keeping the concert series going!

comment []9:49:32 AM  trackback []