Archive: March 19, 2024

 

Archive: March 19, 2023

bad product names

Sunday,  03/19/23  10:06 PM

Have you ever reflected upon bad product names?  We are surrounded by them.  Why is naming products so hard?

Especially bad are names associated with things that have variations.  Like models of cars.

The product people know too much, and they assume we know more than we do.  We barely recognize the name of the company, let alone the product, the model, or the latest variation on the model.  I get it; you need to have differentiation.  So do that, but don't hope that we are tracking every zig and zag of your development.

Take Lucid cars.  (Please!)  The "brand" is Lucid - and you can be forgiven if you've never heard of them.  They are an electric car company founded by engineers who used to work at Tesla.  Their car model is the Lucid Air.  They also have a Lucid Air Pure, a Lucid Air Grand Touring, and a Lucid Air Grand Touring Performance.  And another model called Sapphire, which is a Lucid Air too. 

They all look more or less the same, and are distingushed from each other by various features like battery capacity, engine power, and of course price.  Lest you think the latter is a detail, the most expensive of these options is approximately double the cost of the least, even though they are for many purposes the same car.

From everything I've read, the Lucids are great cars and have a real shot at being Tesla competition.  But they're too young and too unknown to have so many different models and names.  Confusing.

Some companies give up on names and resort to numbers.  The Nimbus 2000!  I get it, names are hard, and numbers are easier.  Also, numbers have a sequence, so perhaps customers can figure out that a Nimbus 3000 is a better or newer model.

But where do you go from there?  You can add letters.  The Nimbus 2000LX!  The RX!  The LRX!  Not to mention the LRX+!  It all gets very confusing very fast.

Don't be afraid to keep the same name.  Just because it's new, just because it's got a new feature, if it's the same product - the same value proposition - the same name is okay.  In fact it's good, because it's stable, and people get to know it. 

Tesla has had a Model S since 2012 but the car you buy today is pretty far advanced from the Model S of then.  Yes, there have been a few variations, but Tesla have kept them to a minimum. 

Apple are another company which have kept names simple.  Macintosh.  iPod.  iPhone.  iPad.  Apple Watch.  Etc.  They have resisted the urge to rename with every new feature and version, and we their customers thank them.  (Yeah, they do do that "Pro" thing from time to time...) 

Concepts like "this is a product", "this is a new version of a product", and "this is a feature of a product" are helpful.  But the real thing is to keep your customers in mind.  Don't assume they know anything - they probably don't - and try to help them.

 

 
 

Archive: March 19, 2022

 

Archive: March 19, 2021

 

Archive: March 14, 2020

Iditarod: halfway Nome

Saturday,  03/14/20  11:37 PM

Hi Iditarodians – I’m sure you’ve all been closely following the Iditarod sled dog race, right? (With everything cancelled, there’s nothing else to watch)

The leaders have been mushing along the Yukon River and have now left the last Yukon checkpoint of Kaltag, making the long run to Unalakleet on the coast of the Bering Sea. The weather has warmed up and with all the snow that’s fallen recently, it’s made for heavy going. This is not going to be a record year.


Right now surprise contender Thomas Waerner is leading by about 8 miles over longtime competitor Aaron Burmeister, with another veteran Jesse Royer a mile behind him.

That’s Thomas and his team at left – sporting the spiffy orange jackets - and Jesse and her team above right.


Brent Sass is fourth, still in Kaltag, waiting out his mandatory 8 hour rest*, as is fifth-placed Peter Kaiser, the defending champion. But sixth place Wade Marrs is also there and has already completed his 8, so he’ll likely leave first and then be running fourth.

* each team is required to take a 24 hour rest somewhere along the trail, an 8 hour rest on the Yukon River, and an 8 hour rest in the penultimate checkpoint at White Mountain

Right: Brent Sass and his team mushing along the frozen Yukon River


2018 champion Joar-Leifseth Ulsom is “only” in 8th, three-time champion Mitch Seavey is back in 10th, and four-time champion Lance Mackey is 15th. The snowy slow conditions have definitely altered the race.

You may remember the last two years Nic Petit was leading coming out onto Norton Sound, and both years his team had issues and self-destructed. This year he’s back in 21st, taking it easier.

Left: Nic Petit and his team coming into Nulato checkpoint


So how about our favorite Jim Lanier? Well sadly, he was the first team to scratch, after having serious problems in Rainy Pass crossing the Alaska Range. Since then I’ve been rooting for Jesse… Cheers and please stay tuned for more!


Richie Diehl mushes into Ruby


Joar-Leifseth Ulsom and Thomas Waener talk strategy in Ruby checkpoint


Best in show: Kristovan, Aaron Burmeister’s leader, during a break Iditarod


GPS tracker view of the entire route. Still about 400 miles remaining: the long trek down to the coast, then up and across the ice of Norton Sound, and then the wild and windy trek along the shore into Nome.

 

 

pandemic pass

Saturday,  03/14/20  11:51 PM

After a long day of driving and thinking, we make ... a filter pass ...

Wow, so it seems like the whole world has shut down!  Incredible.  Better safe than sorry, I suppose, although it does seem like an extreme reaction given the numbers.  Just about everything is cancelled, everyone is working from home, and we're all waiting it out.  Time will tell...

The infographic at right is from the indispensable Visual Capitalist...

I don't blog about it much, but my company Teladoc Health is at the forefront of telemedicine, which has suddenly been thrust into the spotlight by the virus pandemic.  Telehealth is a great thing anyway, but now that physicians want to treat patients remotely, the volumes are off the charts

Interesting: A promising hub for Digital Health: Kazakhstan.

Meanwhile: Congress quietly repeals more of Obamacare

"If nothing else, this episode is a reminder of how Washington works:  First, Congress passes a law setting up an expensive new program along with (if we're lucky) a system to pay for it.  Years later, amid a bipartisan spending binge, those taxes are repealed while the rest of the program remains on the books.  The public barely notices, and the lawmakers involved shrug and move on.  The result is legislation that is fiscally ruinous, but also more popular than it would be if taxpayers were actually made to foot the bill.


Awesome: SpaceX Dragon spacecraft caught by robotic space station arm for the last time.  "Crew Dragon’s next launch – also its astronaut launch debut – could lift off as early as May 2020, just two months from now."  fXf! 

BTW: We simply won't go to Mars without digital health.  Well of course not.  What if there was a virus outbreak en route? 

xkcd: Throw Calculator.  Ever wonder how far George Washington could throw a microwave oven?  How about how far Thor could throw Pikachu?  Now you know :) 


Check this out: Heart's Nancy Wilson and guitarist Eric Tessmer's cover of Depeche Mode's Policy of Truth.  Quite nice :) 

 

 
 

Archive: March 19, 2019

 

Archive: March 19, 2018

 

Archive: March 19, 2017

 

Archive: March 14, 2016

Iditarod: In the Nome stretch, Seaveys vs Sass

Monday,  03/14/16  09:10 AM

Good morning Iditarodians...  overnight the race for first really coalesced into a three team fight to the finish.  Defending champion Dallas Seavey looks like he's going to repeat, followed by his father Mitch, also a champion, and Brent Sass, who has run a great race but looks to be fading. 

[right: Brent Sass and team on Norton Sound]

Inspection of the Iditaflow race tracker shows that Brent has consistently run longer and slower than both Seaveys, and it doesn't look like he'll have the speed to pass them.  Still stranger things have happened (like the finish in 2014), so we watch. 


 

Aliy Zirkle has consolidated fourth, finishing in the top five yet again (!), and it looks like there's an interesting race shaping up for fifth, with Wade Mars ahead of Peter Kaiser, Joar Leifseth Ulsom, Noah Burmeister, and Nicholas Petit.  Jeff King has made it up into the top ten which is amazing considering the attack he suffered at Nulato.

[left: Aliy Zirkle and team approaching Shaktoolik]


 

The leaders are just now approaching White Mountain, where they have to take a manditory eight hour break.  After that it's a "sprint" of about 100 miles to Nome, along the coast.  My algorithms are predicting that Dallas could break his own record of 8 days, 14 hours, so stay tuned for that!

[right: Dallas Seavey and team leave Shaktoolik]


 

Meanwhile, here are some more amazing pictures from the trail, taken by musher / blogger / photographer Sebastian Schnuelle.  Be sure to follow his updates on Iditarod.com...

[left: Mitch Seavey and team outside Shaktoolik]


 

Wade Mars and his team outside Shaktoolik.  Wade has run a great race, steady all along, but has been just a tick slower than the Seaveys and Sass.


 

Peter Kaiser and his team outside Shaktoolik.  Peter is coming on strong and has an outside shot at the top five.


 

Here's a great shot of Wade Mars and his team on the ice of Norton Sound.  Yes, there is wind. Whew.


 

Mitch Seavey and his team on Norton Sound.  Unlike a lot of mushers Mitch doesn't "help" by running along the sled or poling.  He saves his energy for taking care of his team, and it's worked out well for him.  Let's see whether he can catch his son!


 

Brent Sass reaches Koyuk (in first!)  This will probably be the high point of his race, before he was passed by Dallas and Mitch.  Still loving the fluorescent green booties :)


 

And speaking of fluorescent, this shot of DeeDee Jonrowe outside Galena.  DeeDee hasn't been up with the leaders this year but she's running a solid steady race, and will finish in the top half.


 

Here's the GPS tracker view as of this morning:


(please click to enbiggen amazingly)

[All Iditarod 2016 posts]

 

 

Iditarod: Seaveys and Sass, sprint to the finish

Monday,  03/14/16  07:15 PM

I thought I'd check in with another Iditarod update, since it's likely that the race will be won sometime late tonight / early tomorrow morning.  Checking the Iditaflow race tracker we see that defending champion Dallas Seavey is now solidly in first, having just completed his mandatory 8-hour rest in White Mountain; he is now off on the final stretch of 100 miles to Nome.  His Dad (and ex-champion) Mitch Seavey is about 45 minutes behind, with about 30 minutes left in his rest.  Third place Brent Sass is now about two hours behind, with 1:45 left in his break.  Those are the three teams which have a chance to win, and honestly Dallas looks pretty good.

[right: Dallas Seavey and team pulling out of White Mountain, on the Nome stretch]


 

Checking the slopes of the vertical lines you can see his speed in the past 100 miles was at least as good as Mitch's, and considerably faster than Brent's.  He is not quite on pace to beat his record of 8 days 14 hours, but he could pick it up in the Nome stretch and yet beat it.  That would have him finishing at 4:00AM in the morning Alaska Time.

[left: Dallas Seavey and team first into Elim]


 

Fourth place Aliy Zirkle is six hours behind; she's also in White Mountain in her break, and although she's run a great race as usual she is probably out of it.  Fifth place Wade Mars is just getting to White Mountain, closely pursued by Peter Kaiser. 

[right: Aliy Zirkle pulling into Elim]


 

They're going to have quite a race for top five, and I'd have to give the edge to Peter based on apparent running speed.  Also in the hunt are Norwegians Joar Leifseth Ulsom, about an hour behind Wade and Peter, and Ralph Johannessen, about 1:30 behind.

[left: beautiful shot of Joan Leifseth Ulsom and his team mushing along to White Mountain]

 

Here are some more cool shots from the route, as usual taken by Sebastian Schnuelle, who is blogging on the official Iditarod website.  Having an experienced racer out there giving hour-to-hour updates from the checkpoints is so cool.

[right: Brent Sass and his team pulling into Elim with those trademark lime green booties]


 

Nice shot of Wade Mars and his team pulling into Elim.  He waited just long enough to leave Elim before Peter Kaiser got there; they're going to have quite a race to White Mountain.


 

And here is Peter Kaiser and his team, flying out of Elim toward White Mountain.  Currently he has over 1mph on Wade (8 vs 7), that could be enough to move into the top five.


 

Noah Burmeister's team in Elim, raring to go.  They are definitely in the competition for best dressed with snazzy jackets and matching boots.


 

Here's an interesting shot of 10th place Jeff King and his team pulling into Elim.  Jeff is quite an innovator; he pioneered the "caboose" behind the main sled, and now has this interesting stovepipe / cooker arrangement for heating dog water and dog food quickly.  Jeff seems to have recovered amazingly from that unfortunate incident in Nulato.


 

So here's the situation: the top five teams all at White Mountain with 100 miles along the coast left to Nome. 
There's still the Safety checkpoint but most of the time it's just in and out. 
The first teams are likely to reach Nome late tonight / early tomorrow morning.


(please click to enbiggen amazingly)

[All Iditarod 2016 posts]

 

 

happy Pi day!

Monday,  03/14/16  11:24 PM

Hi everyone ... happy Pi day.  Did you compute some digits?  (NASA did...)

Weird: Mathematicians discover a conspiracy in prime numbers.  I'm not a number theorist, but it seems likely that this is a result of representing primes in base 10, and not actually a fundamental asymmetry. 

The trouble with TPP, the case against ratifying the Trans Pacific Partnership.  Doesn't surprise me at all to find there are tons of unwanted side affects when you try to manage economic relationships this closely.  Bah.  Let the markets decide... 

The new WASPs: it isn't a Rand vs Hobbes world, after all.  "One of the great fictions we've perpetrated on ourselves is the belief that we ultimately face a choice between Ayn Rand and Thomas Hobbes: an atomistic, individualistic, capitalistic ethic that rejects the philanthropic impulse categorically vs. Leviathan, an almighty potentate to which we owe allegiance because the alternative is bellum omnium contra omnes, a life that is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. In fact, the opposite is closer to the truth: When you have a thriving free-market economy throwing off great gushing rivers of profit, the most successful people begin to look for satisfaction in something other than 22-bedroom beachfront estates."  Yes. 

Should be required reading for all those considering a vote for Bernie Sanders.

I sometimes often like rereading old posts, and just came across this one, which seems particularly apt given current debates about Socialism and Obamacare: Universal Healthcare

"Health care in the U.S. is the best in the world, for those who can afford it. Better than the U.K., better than Canada, better than the Netherlands. In those countries there is no private profit motive for healthcare providers which drives them to be best. Good thing for them they have the U.S. market pushing technology of which they can then take advantage. ... What is also true is that health care in the U.S. is not as good as other countries for those who can't afford it. That's because good health care is too expensive. So the question is, how to make it more affordable. And the answer is, let the market figure it out.

True as it ever was.

You know what's cool?  America's Cup racing.  These foiling cats are amazing.  I'm so glad they've gone to smaller boats, too; it makes the whole thing seem more accessible.  Would *love* to go for a sail on one of these! 

I was watching cycling on NBCSN the other night and boom there it was, America's Cup racing, on TV.  I've never seen that before.  Now that my Tivo knows this could happen, I'll see it a lot more :)


 

So, want to compute some digits? 
Just launch Mathematica, and here you go

 
 

Archive: March 19, 2015

Thursday,  03/19/15  10:48 PM

Hi y'all, what's up?  Had a busy day of coding in English today ... all good.

This picture shows tomorrow's solar eclipse.  My only question is ... where is Nova Scotia?

SpaceX: No one laughs anymore when we talk about colonizing Mars.  That's all very exciting, but how about ... visiting Titan

Apple Watch and the World Wide Web: "the HTML/CSS/JavaScript web has no place in the wearable world."  I hadn't thought about it, but yeah... 

Tesla's plan to kill range anxiety with a software update.  "The company’s latest software update has two key features ... the car’s estimate of how far it can go before being plugged in will be more accurate, accounting for things like heavy winds and terrain.  And a new 'Trip Planner' proactively warns drivers before they head out of range."  Excellent.  And shows the value of being able to enhance each car's software with over-the-air updates.  Can't wait to test it!

 

 

the happiness cure

Thursday,  03/19/15  11:01 PM

 

this makes me happy :)

 

 
 

Archive: March 18, 2014

Different Scales (NY 11/14/11)

Tuesday,  03/18/14  08:49 PM

 

"different scales"

(from my backlog of unposted awesome New Yorker covers)

 

Google Android Wear

Tuesday,  03/18/14  09:03 PM

Today's big news is BIG: Google Android Wear

"Google has revealed that their Android operating system is coming to wearable technology as part of their newly announced Android Wear project."

Not only does this make Android available as a platform for all sorts of devices – Google Glass, and now Google Watches, and who knows what else – but these will have Google’s voice activated technology built in.

"Okay Watch, take picture"

It’s interesting to me that while Google aren't first to this market, they've beat Apple to it. We all know Apple is working on wearable computing devices but where are they? Maybe, like with phones, they'll wait until everyone else gets it wrong for a while, learn, and then get it right. But Android seems headed for a nice head start.

Also I have to say, these are not ugly.  Of course Google are making a platform, and anyone can use their SDK to build on their platform, so Hublot or Cartier or whomever can make a Google Wear watch.  Android jewelry, coming soon!

 
 

Archive: March 19, 2013

 

Archive: March 19, 2012

 

Archive: March 19, 2011

lazy Saturday

Saturday,  03/19/11  04:12 PM

It's a lazy Saturday around here ... I'm home alone with my Shih-Tsus (that's Bijou at right), it's cold and gray outside, and I'm sitting in my office working away.  Actually though the day is lazy, I am not; I have been cranking on a new project which has me most excited and interested.  Perhaps I can share it with you soon.  In the meantime I have tried to keep my enthusiasm for other stuff during the week, so my priorities stay straight, but on a Saturday I can do what I want :)

I must make some time for riding; next weekend I'm riding a double [century], my first in quite a while, and my condition riding a mere century last weekend was not excellent.  So be it.

But I will interrupt my busy self for a bit of blogging, here goes...

You might have seen this already; an amateur video taken by a local resident in a northern Japanese town as the 20' tsunami rolls in.  Unbelievable.  This really brings home the enormity of the disaster.  Here's some hard data on the quake itself; five minutes at 9.0.  Wow.  They're saying it is the fourth largest in recorded history

Scott "Dilbert" Adams has an interesting account of the disaster; he was in Hawaii on vacation.  "There are many ways to begin a relaxing vacation, but none of them involves a wall of water heading your way at 600 miles per hour."  For many people they will always remember exactly where they were on March 13, 2011. 

One more on the disaster; of course a big worry is the nuclear power plant.  But this puts it in perspective: "A 41-year old reactor gets hit with a 9 magnitude earthquake, then slammed with a 20 ft. tall swell, followed by an explosion due to the buildup of hydrogen gas that blows off the roof of the building, and the core is intact and contained.  And you are telling me that nuclear power isn't safe?

Did you enjoy my little series on musher DeeDee Jonrowe?  If so, you might like this article in the Fairbanks Daily News, which talks about the races within the races on the last night of the Iditarod.  After nine days places 9-12 came down to a matter of minutes.  Wow.  I can't wait 'till next year.  (Go DeeDee!) 

BTW I found a picture of DeeDee and me (right), taken right after her marvelous talk to Aperio.

This morning I installed Win 7 x64 in a VM for some testing.  So that's not so weird, but here's the thing: I used my laptop's DVD drive, for the first time in ... months!  I know this because I have our Christmas card sitting on my desk in a spot where it blocks access to the drive.  So it has been at least mid-December since I used it, and possibly much longer ago than that.  Wow, so be it! 

Back to Scott Adams: the awesomeness of convenience.  Exactly exactly.  If you make something sufficiently easy, people will pay for the convenience.  That's the whole key to iTunes and the Apple ecosystem.  And a big part of the thinking behind my new project :) 

This is such a tragedy: The car from Atlas Shrugged motors, aka the Chevy Volt.  "'Sales are anemic: 326 in December, 321 in January, and 281 in February.' GM has announced a production run of 100,000 in the first two years, so 'Who is going to buy all these cars?'"  You and I paid to bail out GM, we paid to develop the Volt, we paid to subsidize the marketing of the Volt, and now, apparently, we are going to pay to buy the Volt.  All because we're trying to save some jobs?  Blech. 

ZooBorns of the weekend: the world's smallest monkeys, pygmy Marmosets.  How many do you suppose it would take to fill a barrel? 

Good advice: the secret to getting your way.  Run it by everyone and get buy-in ahead of time. 

Onward, back to my lazy Saturday... have a great weekend yourself!

 

 

flying by Saturn

Saturday,  03/19/11  05:03 PM

This is like the awesomest thing ever:

What we have here is a stop-action video of thousands of hi-res stills taken by Cassini while orbiting Saturn; there is no CGI or animation involved.  Unbelievable.  At the end Cassini approaches Titan; man, I can't wait to do that myself!

 
 

Archive: March 15, 2010

OMG, I just got born (New Yorker, 3/15/10)

Monday,  03/15/10  11:06 AM

 

"dude, awesome!"

 

 

Paris in 26 Gigapixels

Monday,  03/15/10  11:42 AM

I'll be the kazillionth blogger to link: Paris in 26 Gigapixels.  Very cool, both the technology and the picture itself.

What did you look for first?  For me, it was the Auguste Rodin museum, and then the Musee d'Orsay :) as pictured above.  Way cool...

 
 

Archive: March 17, 2009

Happy Lá ’le Pádraig!

Tuesday,  03/17/09  08:16 AM

 
 
 
 
 



Happy Lá ’le Pádraig to y'all!

 
 
 
 
 

 

Tuesday,  03/17/09  08:39 PM

Did you have a nice green day?  Excellent, me too.  Busy busy busy but nice nice nice.  Got a lot done.  And meanwhile, it's all happening...

Perfect for St. Patrick's Day: Green is the new black!  In which crucial sections of bike paths are colored green to call attention to them for both bikes and cars.  What an excellent idea, I love it! 

PS and of course for a green bike lane you need a green bike :)

Michael Franc in the NRO asks Where's Alex?  (meaning Alexander Hamilton)  About how citizens are now more involved with the Federal government than their local ones...  your attention follows your money.  "Obviously, the far better solution to this mess is not to send all those dollars to Washington in the first place."  Obviously. 

Chris Muir's day-by-day is excellent today... 

John Battle on The Change: It's very sorta Twitter (Facebook, that is).  I commented: "Unlike many of you [apparently] I was/am a Facebook user but not a Twitter user. And I don't like the changes at all. If I want to Tweet or be Tweeted, I'll use Twitter. Facebook used to show me more information about my friends, static information rather than dynamic. Now it is down to just showing me what my friends are doing *now*, and that isn't as interesting to me. Net net I think this was a mistake, Twitter already exists and Facebook shouldn't try to be Twitter, they should keep being Facebook.

PS there is more here on Facebook's blog.

Jeff Atwood remembers the hardest interview puzzle question ever.  He doesn't like "puzzle" interview questions, but as I commented: "As someone who poses interview questions a lot (and answers them rarely if ever) I must tell you, they are really important. Until we are allowed to give candidates IQ tests they are the best / only way we have to form an estimate of how smart people are, in the sense of how they think. And the interaction of working through a puzzle together gives you a chance to see how they think, how they problem solve, and how they handle stressful situations.

My own hardest interview puzzle question would be the two switches...

The wave of the day, from the horse's mouth...  taken at Maverick's, of course...  you have to  love that color! 

ZooBorns of the day: Black-necked swan cygnets.  ("cygnets"? who knew?) 

Wired: How to make small talk.  Good to know :)

 

 
 

Archive: March 19, 2008

6,608 miles... and counting

Wednesday,  03/19/08  09:08 PM

One year ago today I decided to start a log of my bike rides.  I can't remember why, but after years of "just riding" I sat down and created a little spreadsheet, and have since made one row entries for each ride; the route, the miles, and the time (if known).  This is pretty cool, because now I know that in the past year I did 210 rides, for a total of 6,608 miles, an average of 31 miles per ride, or 127 miles per week.  Wow, that is so cool!

Without having previous years' metrics to compare I can't be sure, but I have to believe I have ridden more often, and further, as a result of keeping this log.  There were days when I really didn't feel like riding - maybe it was cold, or I was busy, or there was a ready procrastination handy - but I did it anyway to keep up the pace.  Watching that little plot creeping upward was an ever-present inspiration.

I believe this is an excellent example of the metric magic.  For me, measuring works.  Your mileage may vary :)

 

Wednesday,  03/19/08  09:29 PM

It is that time again, the Ides of March, the time for - ta da - March Madness!  Otherwise known as the Tivo-a-thon.  For the next four days, I will eat, sleep, and work while watching 48 basketball games.  How it was ever done before Tivo I don't remember (VHS tape?).  Anyway yes Aperio has a pool (we are raising money for cancer!) and yes I have filled in my bracket and yes you can see it; just click the excerpt at left.  And yes, I am picking UCLA to go all the way.  Go Bruins! 

Wow, so Arthur C. Clarke has died, at 90, in Sri Lanka.  Of course when we think of him we all think of 2001: A Space Odyssey, but did you know he was the first to propose geostationary satellites as communication relays, in 1945?  To this day geostationary orbits are sometimes called Clarke orbits. 

I totally love this: so at Geno's Steaks in Philadelphia there's this sign: "This is America: when ordering please speak English."  The Commission on Human Relations (whatever that is) recently ruled these signs do not violate the city's Fair Practices Ordinance.  Well I should hope not!  This is a free country, and what's more, our language is English

I wish this would start a trend, for example: "This is America, when voting please use English", or how about this one: "This is America, when learning in school please use English".  I know it won't happen, but I can wish...

Steven Frank on niches in a market: The First, the Free, and the Good.  "Where you can really dominate is by combining two or more of these properties. If you are first AND best, you'll be doing quite well for a very long time, as long as you stay the best. If you're the best and free, it's going to be very hard to compete with you -- although those two lines don't intersect just every day."  I like First and Best.  Free, not so much.  Yeah I know you can make money with Free, but it isn't easy.  [ via John Gruber

This is amazing: Stanford researchers cram 12,616 tiny lenses into a 3D camera.  "A team at Stanford is working on a 3D camera that uses 12,616 micro-lenses to generate high quality 3 megapixel images with self-contained 'depth maps' that measure the distance to every object in the frame. The system works by focusing each lens above four different overlapping sensor arrays, which work in concert to determine depth -- just like your eyes."  I guess the output is an image you can rotate to view at any angle. 

Finally, here we have a wonderful picture of an Angel Oak, in South Carolina.  Wow, that's just about all I can say.  (Please click pic to enlarge.) 

 

 

 
 

Archive: March 19, 2007

 

Archive: March 1, 2006

something to think about

Wednesday,  03/01/06  10:13 PM

From my friend Diane Simons:


A young woman was about to finish her first year of college.  Like many others her age, she considered herself to be a liberal Democrat, and was in favor of the redistribution of wealth.

She was deeply ashamed that her father was a staunch Republican, a feeling she openly expressed.  Based on the lectures that she had participated in, and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt that her father had for years harbored an evil, selfish desire to keep what he thought should be his.

One day she was challenging her father on his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and the addition of more government welfare programs.  The self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth and she indicated so to her father.  He responded by asking how she was doing in school.  Taken aback, she answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA, and let him know that it was tough to maintain, insisting that she was taking a difficult course load and was constantly studying, which left her no time to go out and party.  She didn't have time for a boyfriend, and didn't really have many college friends because she spent all her time studying.

Her father listened and then asked, "How is you friend Audrey doing?"  She replied, "Audrey is barely getting by.  All she takes are easy classes, she never studies, and she barely has a 2.0 GPA.  She is so popular on campus, college for her is a blast.  She's always invited to parties, and lots of times she doesn't even show up for classes because she's too hung over."

Her father asked his daughter, "Why don't you go to the Dean's office and ask him to deduct a 1.0 off your GPA and give it to your friend who only has a 2.0.  That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPA."

The daughter, visibly shocked by her father's suggestion, angrily fired back, "That wouldn't be fair! I have worked really hard for my grades!  I've invested a lot of time, and a lot of hard work!  Audrey has done next to nothing toward her degree.  She played while I worked my tail off!"

The father said, "Welcome to the Republican Party".


Perfect.

Of course, Audrey was a minority, it wasn’t her fault that she played all day and got poor grades, it was discrimination and cultural bias.  So the GPA system was “rebalanced” such that Audrey got a 4.0.

P.S. The average GPA at Harvard is now 3.5.  No wonder Larry Summers quit.

 

Wednesday,  03/01/06  10:27 PM

Tonight is going to be serious.  I'm in a feisty mood.  Sure there were some Apple announcements today, but there's other stuff happening too.  The Ole filter makes a pass...

Can I just say, once again, publicly, how great Charles Johnson's Little Green Footballs is?  Okay; it's great.  I link it pretty often, but I read it every day.  This is important stuff, real stuff.  Check it out.  Subscribe to it. 

I read Daily Kos, too, I don't just read what I agree with.  To me the difference in tone, the difference in logic, the difference in maturity is obvious.  Your mileage may vary, but if you aren't getting news from sites like these, you aren't getting news.  TV "news" is entertainment, not news.  And Newspapers are going the same way, unfortunately.

I received this video from my colleague Mark Wrenn, entitled "German engineering vs. Arab technology".  I have no idea if it is a real VW ad - I hope so, but I doubt it - but it sure is food for thought.  When did it become commonplace that people would blow themselves up to make a point?  Weird. 

Scott Adams on Strange Laws.  "There are a lot of laws that don’t make sense to me.  For example, if I were king, I’d make attempted suicide punishable by death.  That’s a win-win scenario."  Scott is like George Carlin. 

Douglas Murray: We Should Fear Holland's Silence.  [ via Instapundit ]  Indeed. 

Gerard Vanderleun: Saddam Lied on Tape.  Somewhat less reported in the MSM than Dick Cheney's hunting accident, but somewhat more important, don't you think? 

Eric Raymond: Media Analysts Sound Pessimistic as Iraq Civil War Fails to Materialize.  "Media analysts sounded an increasingly gloomy note today following news that a full-scale outbreak of civil war in Iraq had been averted. 'The prospects for regime change in Washington seem increasingly remote,' said one senior White House reporter who spoke on condition of anonymity."  Zing. 

David B on GNXP: The Evolution of Cooperation.  "The existence of cooperation is one of the major problems in human evolution.  Among non-human animals, cooperation is rare except among individuals who are closely related.  Among humans, in contrast, it is common.  The problem is to explain this in view of the temptation to 'defect' from cooperation, obtaining its benefits without its costs."  I think the key to this is the evolution of intelligence, which is one reason why Unnatural Selection is such a problem.  (And if you doubt this is really happening, you don't read LGF or Daily Kos.) 

Bill Taylor about Paul English, writing in the NYTimes: Your call should be important to us, but it's not.  I worked with Paul at Intuit, he's a smart guy.  His effort Get Human is important.  "This month, Mr. English transformed his righteous indignation into a full-blown crusade.  He started Get Human, which he calls a grass-roots movement to 'change the face of customer service.'  The accompanying Web site sets out principles for the right ways for companies to interact with customers, encourages visitors to rate their experiences, and publishes many more secret codes unearthed by members of the movement.  As of last week, the ever-expanding cheat sheet offered cut-through-the-automation tips for nearly 400 companies."  I'm a big believer in this; everyone at Aperio has heard me express many times that when people call us, they should immediately be able to talk to a live person. 

Ann Coulter previews the Oscars.  [ via Powerline ]  "I shall grant my awards based on the same criteria Hollywood studio executives now use to green-light movies: political correctness.  Also, judging by most of the nominees this year, the awards committee prefers movies that are wildly unpopular with audiences."  It would be funnier if it wasn't so true

Cybele on blogging.la: The Meeting of the Marys. "At Noon today, Long Beach received a royal visitor, the Queen Mary 2, here to greet the city’s own royal resident, the R.M.S. Queen Mary."  Great photo... 

Congratulations to Floyd Landis, who won the inaugural Tour of California (together with his team, Phonak).  By all accounts the race was a huge success.  "The week of racing couldn't have ended better for AEG Sports, the sports marketing company that owns and operates the tour.  With estimates of over 100,000 spectators in attendance in Redondo Beach, AEG estimates that over one million fans lined the roads of California to experience the event."  Wow.  I watched the stages on ESPN2, and the crowds looked like European crowds, with people ten deep all along the course.  Bike racing hits the big time in the U.S. - finally. 

This was also an interesting preview of some of the big American names in cycling; in addition to Landis, George Hincapie and Levi Leipheimer also won stages.  With Lance Armstrong retired it is going to be a wide-open season of bike racing this year, with Americans among the top contenders.

So, what did you think of the Olympics?  Good?  Bad?  Indifferent?  I liked them.  A lot.  A lot more than I thought I would.  As CNN reports Olympics ends in a Circus, as they should - it is after all entertainment.  But it is unstaged entertainment; sports are the ultimate reality show.  The uncertainty and finality are what makes it great.  I'm looking forward to Vancouver 2010 already. 

Isn't Sam Sullivan awesome?  The mayor of Vancouver, he's been a quadriplegic since breaking his neck skiing when he was 19.  What an inspiring guy.

Dave Winer reruns an Ole and Lena joke.  I don't know Lena.  Do I? 

 

the spiral galaxy

Wednesday,  03/01/06  10:52 PM

The Hubble telescope recently captured the highest resolution view of a spiral galaxy, Messier 101.  So you know what that means; yep, I downloaded it and posted it for interactive viewing:

(After clicking, hit F11 to maximize your browser's window.)

Stunning, isn't it?  Galactic art.

 
 

Archive: March 6, 2005

Cool art that will mess with your head, part I

Sunday,  03/06/05  09:11 PM

I received a long picture-laden email entitled "Cool art that will mess with your head", courtesy of my colleague Steven Hashagen.   It is indeed cool art and it will indeed mess with your head.  I plan to dribble it out over time. Anyway here's the first:

 

 

  If anyone knows the artist please tell me; I'd love to give this proper attribution.
[ Update 1/7/14: This is The Sun Sets Sail, by Rob Gonsalves ]

 

 

 

Sunday,  03/06/05  09:29 PM

NYTimes: White House approves pass for blogger.  Excellent.  Amazingly, the usually clueless Times even included the URL to Garrett Graff's blog, FishBowlDC.  The Times, they are a changin'... 

Steve Rubel: Microsoft Office marketing is stuck in the prehistoric era.  "It seems to me like they're trying the same ol' stuff they did back in 1995.  Where has the innovative Microsoft Office marketing machine gone?  The company's army of 1200+ employee bloggers do more to market Microsoft's products/services these days than anything the corporation has done in years."  I don't know, I think the dinos are cute.  Paleolithic, I think.  And they are a tribute to office diversity :)  [ via Scoble

Chris Anderson: The tragically neglected economics of abundance.  "Although there may be near infinite selection of all media, there is still a scarcity of human attention and hours in the day.  Our disposable income is limited.  On some level, it's still a fixed-pie game.  Offer a couch potato a million TV shows and they may end up watching no more television than they did before; just different television, better suited to them."  Another great introspection about the long tail.  Chris' blog is batting about 1,000, every post seems worthwhile.  Subscribe to it! 

Oh, and here's another: What about producers?  "It's worth noting that commercial success is not the only (or even main) reason to be a Long Tail producer.  Most authors write books not to get rich but to reach a readership, whether it be to enhance their academic reputation, market their consultancy, or just leave a mark on the world.  The Long Tail effect may not pay their rent, but it will find them a bigger audience, and if what they're offering is really good it may be dramatically bigger.

Olivelink is person-to-person video streaming.  Wow.  Kind of like video podcasting.  [ via Matt Haughey

 
 

Archive: March 3, 2004

Opportunity rocks

Wednesday,  03/03/04  06:42 AM

Yeah, I'm back.  Unbelievably, except for a brief post a month ago to say I was alive, I have now not posted for six weeks.  But I'm back...

So the big big news, in an otherwise big news day, was yesterday's announcement by NASA engineers that Opportunity has found "strong evidence" that Meridiani Planum was wet.  And not just damp; "Liquid water once flowed through these rocks.  It changed their texture, and it changed their chemistry."  To me this is not surprising, but it is amazing, on several levels.

First, if we go on to discover that Mars held (or indeed holds!) life, this will be seen as the first harbinger.  That would be amazing.  Unbelievably amazing, actually.  But even if we don't discover such evidence, what's amazing also is our ability to detect and interpret this evidence.  The Earth is roughly 5 billion years old.  Homo Sapiens are roughly 150,000 years old, a mere blip.  But only in the last twenty years or so have we had the technology to send robots to another planet which can probe for this kind of information, and transmit it back.  That's amazing.  And the geological knowledge that enables scientists to interpret this information, with confidence, is amazing as well. 

What a great time to be alive!

 
 

Archive: March 19, 2003

I Don't Get .Net

Wednesday,  03/19/03  02:27 PM

Hello, my name is Ole, and I don't get .Net.

If you know what .Net is, and can explain it to a reasonably intelligent software engineer, please send me email.  I will be so happy, and you will become famous; I promise to post your explanation with full attribution right here, on this website, for everyone to see (my 7 regular visitors).

Microsoft created this concept they call "dot-net", but nobody seems to have a good handle on what it is.  In fact, nobody even seems to know how to spell it, is it ".Net" or "dot-net" or "DotNet"?

This has to be one of the worst names for something ever.  How many names can you think of which begin with a period?  Do you think everyone missed out on the potential for starting names with a period?  Not to mention, there is already such a thing as ".net", it is a top-level Internet domain.  (Generally used by ISPs, for example, my service provider is Pacific Bell, and their domain name is pacbell.net).  Strangely, the Microsoft "dot-net" doesn't seem to have anything to do with the Internet ".net". 

It isn't even clear what category .Net fits into, let alone what it is.  Here are some possibilities:

  • Is it a product?  If so, where do I buy it?  What does it do for me? 
  • Is it an architecture?  If so, where is it documented?  What does it do for me?
  • Is it a software technology?  If so, how do I use it?  What does it do for me?

Microsoft has a .net website, which features a page called What is .NET?  Unfortunately this page is misnamed, it does not explain what .NET is (visit it and see).  You would think a couple of paragraphs on this page would be helpful, but apparently the secret must be kept.

I'm not the only one who is confused.  Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer explains:

 "One question might be, and I'll be as direct as I can be about this, what is .Net?  Unlike Windows, where you could say it's a product, it sits in one place, it's got a nice little box.  In some senses, it's a very good question." - July 2002

Well, that was a good effort, but apparently there were some people like me who still didn't get it, so later Steve tried again:

"It's about connecting people to people, people to information, businesses to businesses, businesses to information, and so on.  That is the benefit." - October 2002

Believe it or not, this did not clear things up for me.  Apparently I was not alone, because several Microsoft engineers put together a website called GotDotNet.  (It is at www.gotdotnet.com, not to be confused with www.got.net.)  If you visit this website, don't expect to find an explanation.  Maybe these people really "got" dot-net, but they appear unwilling to share the secret.

Last July at ".Net briefing day", Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates was asked "what is .Net".  That was the question, and here was his answer:

"We don't have the user-centricity.  Until we understand context, which is way beyond presence -- presence is the most trivial notion of context."

I just don't get it.

[ Later: Okay, well, maybe I'm Starting to Get .NET... ]

 

Wednesday,  03/19/03  08:43 PM

Well, the war has started.  You won't get the best analysis from me.  But I encourage you to get many cross bearings - visit CNN, but also visit foreign websites and bloggers.  At times like this it is really hard to know what is really going on, you have to average over many sites.  Google News is as always invaluable, the "and 1459 related" links give you all the coverage on a given story.  And bloggers like Instapundit and IraqWar.info are good because they drop so many links.  Like - here's a blogger in Baghdad.

Here is the text of Tony Blair's speech yesterday before the House of Commons.  I find it to be, as the Guardian reports, "nothing short of splendid".  Too bad such oratory has fallen out of favor in our Congress.

Seems weird that the NCAA basketball tournament starts tomorrow.  In years past I had my brackets filled out and my Tivo ready.  Thirty-two games in two days!  This year I'm just not into it.

When cricket reporters go bad...  I love it that his editors ran this.

Business 2.0 has released their annual 101 Dumbest Moments in Business.  It's pretty funny.  I do hate the way all their links are to themselves - they don't get the net.  My favorite is #89, "How the right merger can create exponential growth":

January 2002 - One year after the completion of its much-ballyhooed merger, AOL Time Warner posts a paltry quarterly loss of $1.8 billion.

April 2002 - Just three months later, AOL Time Warner announces a loss of $54.2 billion, the biggest quarterly loss in U.S. history.

January 2003 - Stunningly, a mere nine months after that -- and just two years after the consummation of the marriage -- AOL Time Warner sets another record with an annual loss of $98.7 billion.

Texas Congressman John Carter thinks jailing college students who download music will discourage piracy.  Sure, and shooting people who jaywalk will discourage jaywalking, too.

Elon Musk's new company SpaceX has successfully fired their rocket engine.  Elon previously founded Zip2, which was sold to AltaVista, and X.com, which merged with PayPal.  It will be interesting to watch SpaceX, I would never bet against Elon...

Finally, have you seen the Iraqi U.N. Ambassador Mohammed Al-Douri?  In Japan his hairdo is called a barcode.