Living in the Future

This past week we got our iPad at work. It arrived just as we were debating the kinds of seemingly critical decisions that start ups seem to face every other day or so.

After an impassioned plea to respect the obligations of our mission even in the face of market resistance, I broke into "We few, we happy few..."

Some around the table smiled in recognition, some looked at the crazy guy. I pressed forward with "...we band of brothers, for he that sheds his blood with me today shall be my brother" and asked what decision Henry would make if he were with us at the table. The smiles grew bigger, and the concern about the crazy guy became acute.

After a brief discussion on leadership and the meaning of St. Crispin's Day, we took a break.

Over the next 60 seconds, I fired up iBook on the iPad, did a search on Shakespeare, downloaded the complete works (for free), did a search on "We few we happy few", and highlighted one of the most famous passages in English literature in remarkably attractive highlighter effects (bravo Apple), bookmarked the passage, fired up YouTube app, did a search on "we few, we happy few", and brought up the 5 minute speech from Kenneth Branagh's remarkable Henry Vth

When folks returned from break, we handed around the 1 1/2 pound device, everyone used hand gestures to watch the clip and read the passage, and we were all reminded of one of the greatest lessons in leadership the world has known. We decided to do the hard thing and not the safe thing.

All in less than 60 seconds, all on a whim, all without fanfare or surprise, all with transparent technology.

In that moment, the 40 year dream of the Dynabook was made real. We don't yet have jet packs, but we have something so much more profound.

A New Day in Texas

Via the field, a remarkable video showing the Prairie View A&M students in Texas shutting down a highway to march seven miles to the nearest polling station to vote.

You owe it to yourself to watch this one, and share far and wide.

Texas Early Voting Wave as Reaction to Systemic Disenfranchisement

Texas Republicans have worked overtime to make it harder for key Democratic voting groups to vote and be represented fairly. The redistricting games they’ve played are infamous. And for the Prairie View A&M University precincts, they put the early-polling place more than seven miles from the school.
So what did the students in this video do? They shut down the highway as they marched seven miles to cast their votes on the first day of early voting.

A great day

I am not ready (yet) to get behind any of the presidential candidates, but I am absolutely bursting with pride as an American that an African-American with a name like Barrack Obama has decidedly won the Iowa caucuses.

For my 11 year old daughter, who is following a presidential campaign for the first time, it is a great day when the very short list of those who will become the leader of the free world includes a woman and a black man.  My sincere hope is that she will grow up wondering how it could have ever been different, and never accepting anything different.

Regardless of who ultimately becomes president, America has just become a better place, and our future a better future.  After the long night, it is indeed morning in America again.

Christmas wish list

For those looking for ideas for what to get me for Christmas, you should check out the latest Profiles in History auction and look for lot #1128. I'll gladly arrange shipping (thanks)

LOT #1128 Original screen-used full-scale model T-800 endoskeleton from Terminator 2: Judgment Day 1128. Original screen-used full-scale model T-800 endoskeleton from Terminator 2: Judgment Day. (Carolco/TriStar, 1991) This iconic figure was constructed for the opening scene of the film, when the T-800 makes his dramatic appearance in the frightening future world of Los Angeles, 2029 A.D., in the Future War battle with John Connor and his small band of survivors. Measuring fully 6 ft 2 in. tall, the figure is hand-crafted of chrome-plated resin over a steel and aluminum armature. The feet of this intricate T-800 are the original feet used in the first Terminator film, and are the only real metal feet made for any of the films. The eyes illuminate in an errie red (powered by a small battery), and the figure is posed on a custom-built diorama of "scorched earth" to complete the display. This is a 100-percent complete screen-used figure; only the mechanical elements have been removed to make it suitable for studio display. An impressive and iconic figure from this groundbreaking film, which received the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects in 1992. This is the first time this piece has ever been offered publicly, and may be the last opportunity collectors will ever have to acquire what is probably the most instantly-identifible visual effects character of the last 30 years of film history. $80,000 - $100,000

What You Really Learn at College

Via dethroner, comes the engineering marvel for the week...

Modern Day Alchemy

bunnie (of hacking the original Xbox fame) has been posting a series of absolutely fascinating pieces on his blog about working with the manufacturing processes in China.

The video clips really give you a sense of what's happening, and bunnie is an excellent engineer/correspondent. His new company Chumby is ramping manufacturing in China, and he's bringing us along for the ride (before you ask, I've already filed a grievance with their VP Product for getting on the "First 50" list).

If you have any interest in the ghost in the (global economic) machine, definitely worth a read.

There are countless "wow" and "a-ha" moments while reading these posts, but one that really sticks out is his post on what is required to keep all the factory workers fed:

Again, the scale of some food operations is pretty impressive. I heard that Foxconn–the place that makes the iPods and iPhones–consumes 3,000 pigs a day. I saw this truck of pigs going off the exit on the highway toward Foxconn, and it reminded me of that factoid.

From pigs to iPhones! It all happens right here in Shenzhen.

Clearly, modern day alchemy is no longer about transmuting lead into gold, but rather pigs into iPods.

Really REALLY big holes...

For those of us that wasted their elementary and middle school years seeing how deep you could dig a hole, deputydog has put together an amazing collection of 7 really really big holes...

The Bingham Canyon mine in Utah is particularly impressive. Apparently, the locals started digging the thing in 1863, and they're still going. So far, 3/4 miles deep and 2 1/2 miles wide (a damn darn big hole, as the locals would say)

Form over Feature/Function

One of the extraordinary things about being in the Mac world is the different mindset that you see in the applications and the application community. Design philosophy not only matters, but people actually know what it means.

After years in the PC space, I had gotten used to the relentless focus on feature/function in the various applications. "Things" were defined by long lists of features and the details of the functions they supported.

If you're lucky, these feature/functions may be grouped by some metaphor. Alas, you usually had to deal with competing metaphors from the 5 different teams that worked on the app (or 100 teams if you're talking MS Office)

If you're extremely lucky, the application designer may have applied some goal-centric design to streamline the app.

More often than not, competitive pressures in the PC application space required developers to put an insanely number of features into the app to remain competitive with the other folks that had 1000s of features in their app.

With that grounding, I was overjoyed to stumble upon the game changing Quicksilver for OSX. Although I'm sure the iGeeks could describe what it is (I'm still an apprentice), I find it a very difficult application to describe.

Thankfully, the author gave a very interesting (and must see) tech talk at Google on the subject that is available for viewing. There are also some nice on line tutorials available, which may be a better place to start.

What I find most interesting about Quicksilver is the movement from applications from a collection of feature/function (spell check, email, etc.) to application as a metaphor (desktop, recycle bin, etc.) to application as conversation based on a grammar.

Rather than interacting with a program (feature function) or a proxy for a thing (metaphor), you are now have a conversation with the application using a simple grammar.

In the case of Quicksilver, start typing a noun (word, file name, application name, etc) and pick your "thing" from a list, then pick the verb for what you want done to that "thing". For example, "Birthday photos.jpg", "Email to (compose)", "mom".

In selecting your noun, you're invoking a desktop search engine that intelligently adapts to your search style based on what you select. For example, if you type "pd" and select "Parallels Desktop.app", next time that app will be at the top of the selection list as you type "pd".

Based on the type of noun, there are then a fixed set of verbs that are appropriate things to do with that noun. As you plug in additional capabilities, the list of verbs grows.

The neat thing is that working with Quicksilver feels a lot like working with a person for the first time. Early on you need to make extra effort to make sure you're on the same page when discussing things, but over time you move to a kind of short hand. Human/computer interaction as conversation.

The authors Google tech talk video briefly alludes to the author's work on Abracadabra for gestural control (non-verbal) as a complement to the text focus of Quicksilver, and speaks to the minimalist philosophy behind the app. By using hotkeys and gestures as short hand for "sentences" (for example, circle to select, and a loop to delete), you can get to the next level of transparency in communicating your intentions.

Definitely worth checking out.

All I want for Christmas is a Super Capicitor

From Ars Technica comes a bit of geek news I've been waiting for years to read.

Apparently a company in Texas is working on a new type of capacitor that would replace traditional batteries. Capacitors make incredibly good sense for power storage, except for that pesky charge density problem (they just can't store that much umph unless they are huge). The Texas company is rumored to have a solution to that problem.

Having a viable solution to portable power storage would be game changing. Unlike computation power, memory, storage, etc. that have all enjoyed explosions in capacity, batteries have not been riding a wave of innovation.

A viable clean, high density, instant charge capacitor-based power storage system would turn a lot of what we currently do (from driving, to phones, to solar/wind/wave power to load leveling of power consumption in large offices) completely upside down.

Let's hope it actually works.

Billions and Billions...

If you're looking for something to make your head hurt, contemplate a 1 billion light year wide hole in the universe:

Astronomers have stumbled upon a tremendous hole in the universe. That's got them scratching their heads about what's just not there. The cosmic blank spot has no stray stars, no galaxies, no sucking black holes, not even mysterious dark matter. It is 1 billion light years across of nothing.

The late night comedians will have a field day with this one...

Living the good life...

As soon as this guy gets mobile again, time to head to Vegas... (thanks to Kedric for forwarding)