Random Thoughts

Carly Fiorina: I will miss her terribly. Smart, foxy, an excellent speaker and the one woman in compSci who proved a glass ceiling can be shattered has left the building. At this point, she didn't make her numbers and in the high wire act of CEOs, that is the one thing one can't combine with political insolence and still survive. She leaves HP well-compensated and a major player who can choose her next job in comfort.

Carly will be back. I'll be glad. Smart women improve the business. Smart beautiful women improve the species. You go, girl.

National ID Cards: There are lots of reasons to have these, and from the point of view of a public safety vendor employee, we need them. On the other hand, technologies have implications and this one isn't safe to deploy without thinking these through. I am a lot more frightened of administrations than I am of the government per se. It won't be the government, but the current administration who abuses this stuff at the high levels of power. At the street level, the abuse will start on day one. Criminals don't waste opportunities.

One prediction: because scanning RFIDs surreptitiously poses immediate dangers, wallets and purses could evolve quickly to make them unscannable, but that will raise hell with the airport scanners, so there will be specialty carry-on items for travel. Or, the modern version of the ID pocket protector will be devised. Whatever the shape of the solution, wherever there is fear or inconvenience, there is money to be made through innovation. That is how capitalism works. Radar guns spawn radar detectors. The cold war of technology is the engine of western economics.

URIs Vs URNs Vs URLS: How can we still be having this argument on any serious technical list? The cost/benefit issues of having layered systems for name/identity management are so exhaustively documented one could list the issues on a Chinese restaurant menu. This is the one permathread that should become a classic and first year course in universities required of both the philosophy and computer science departments. That way, the students can get this out of their psyches before they enter the world of real work.

Paradigms for Next Generation Public Safety Systems

Network(s) of communicating objects capable of analysing and adapting to local conditions through an infrastructure of sensors and just-in-time hierarchies of command and control (C2) responsive by event type and geolocation.

Dominant Characteristics

- decentralized

- self-organizing

- self-recognizing

- self-regulating

- self-sustaining

- local intelligence/global resource allocation

Potential Developments

- use of virtual environments with real-time sensor overlays for C2 with increased requirements for combinations of low-fidelity and high-fidelity just-in-time mapping

- greater reliance on local autonomy with access to very large data marts for strategy, tactics, procedures, and analytical tools that are jointly organized and created (authored) by
communities of strike and task specialists (see WikiPedia)

- machine intelligence advances to semi-autonomous operation within 10 years (and that is a conservative estimate) enabling safer at-a-distance operations with less human-in-the-loop control (that is, more tactical authority resides in the programs). Presents training challenges for joint human/machine forces (eg, secure identity management systems - see below for idiotypic response). Within 20 years, can operate fully autonomously in adaptive mode.

- increased requirements for independent, autonomous energy generation sources

- increased use of biological assets to combat biological threats (eg, RNA defenses, more work on idiotype-based vaccines). Note that immune network response models are particularly interesting as a model for self-organizing/self-regulating response systems. See Niels Jerne network hypothesis for immune systems. A thought is that task forces act as T-cell analogs and strike forces act as B-cell analogs.

- increased use and diversity of strike teams under the command of just-in-time task forces. Occasional need for joint task forces but emphasis on common training and common intelligence assets with application of immune network theories of clonal recognition (part of the concept of self-organizing, self-regulating systems).

- smaller forces against smaller groups of network-organized combatants (the criminal has the same or better assets by type and kind. Resurgence of non-fundamentalist Mafia-like organizations.) The ability of the joint task forces to self-organize guarantees scaling (See NIMS/NRP).

Bewitched: The Hotei, Mr. Mole and the Little Witch

A story about progress and the limits of magic. The little witch is the raven haired niece of the Witch Of Endor. The Hotei is her Uncle, a very powerful warlock who delights in taking the forms of mortals to amuse himself. Today, he has taken the form of the Hotei, a mendicant Buddhist monk who travels from village to village with his begging bowl while making toys for children from the bits and pieces of junk he picks up along the way...

just as this story is made from pieces of junk I picked up along the way.

***********

When the raven haired little witch found her Uncle, he was frantically stabbing the ground with his staff into the tops of burrows of a mole that had taken residence in his yard beside his small hut in the forest. With every thrust, his big belly quivered and he laughed very loudly, while elsewhere in the yard, a mole pushed its head out of the ground and chattered at him just as loudly. She watched this for a moment until her Uncle finally collaped onto a small chair still laughing. He wiped his brow on his sleeve, then noticed the little witch as she hovered next to the Mole. The Mole chattered at her as if to complain about her Uncle's attempts to clobber him with his staff.

"Hello Little Witch! Have you come to help me dispense with this bothersome mole?"

"No. I have just come to get away from Mother. She yells at me and I wish to be somewhere where no one is yelling at me."

"Well, I won't yell at you. Come sit with me." He clicked his fingers and another chair appeared next to him.

"Sit down. You look very sad, little witch! Why is that?"

"I am learning to cast spells. It makes me very sad."

"Why?"

"My spells don't always work. I try to make white unicorns, but they become blue horses. I conjure rabbits but they don't have fur. I want to enchant my cousin's boyfriend, but my spells don't work on him. It makes me very unhappy. Try as hard as I can, I don't really think I am making progress."

"See Mr. Mole there. Every day he digs tunnels. He goes from here to there, and there to here. Is that progress?"

"I don't know. I suppose it is."

The old Hotei stood up, laughed even more loudly and put his hands above his head, palms raised and flat toward the sky. He smiled and twirled around, his beads rattling, his tattered robes flowing, and he chanted as if he were casting a spell, and as he danced, the Mole joined him:

"To see the world as it is,
Look straight without preconception.
To see the world as it will be,
Avert your eyes; dream your perception.

I can place my staff in Mister Mole's path
Crush his tunnels to block his way
But he digs around my complications
Leaving more tunnels each day.

What he does not know won't change him.
What he does not feel, rearrange him.
He makes no predictions or long term plans
So his world is exactly what he understands."

Mr Mole, inside his hole
Is as happy as you are sad.
A life lived for itself is a well-lived life
Whether you think it good or bad."

When he finished his dance, he swung his staff at the Mole still dancing beside him. The Mole ducked and chattered as if to fuss at him, then ran back to the entrance of his tunnel. The Hotei turned to the little witch laughing at them both, and asked deadpan seriously:

"Why aren't you making progress?"

"Mother says I am making excellent progress but that I try too hard."

"And your Mother would know."

"I can do simple spells quite nicely. But when I try to do complicated spells, things always turn out badly."

"The more complicated the spell, the less likely it is to grant your wish. The more you must know, the more you must control to ensure the success of your spell. As the spell involves more strangers, the stranger the things you must know, so the more intimate the knowledge becomes, the stranger the outcome. The more intimate the knowledge, the less it is your wish and the more it is you. From the moment you cast the spell to know your heart's desire, you become a stranger to your heart."

"But if I practice very very hard, can't my heart's desire be made of my magic?"

"That depends on what you practice."

"I practice my spells as Mother teaches them to me."

"So you say, but do you always practice them exactly as she shows you."

"Well, yes. No. Well.. sometimes I change them a little to make them easier to remember. Sometimes, I can't remember them completely and make...small mistakes."

"Ah then, so there is what you say you do and what you actually do."

"Don't tell, Mother!"

"I won't, and even then, it doesn't matter, Little Witch. Practice makes your magic better but only almost perfect. No matter how much you practice the spell, every time you cast it, it is different."

"Even if I practice a lot?"

"Even if you practice a lot more than a lot. The longer the spell, the more you must practice. The longer you practice, the more small mistakes you make. Each small mistake makes a bigger difference in the outcome. No, the only way to be certain of the outcome is to limit the spell, and so, limit the desire. Simple spells are the best. So are simple desires. The shorter the act, the more certain the outcome. The fewer strangers you involve yourself with, the more you remain yourself."

"Why can't I make up another me to do my spells? I know the Mirror Spell."

"But don't you have to look at the person or thing on which you cast a spell?"

"Of course."

"Then it wouldn't be your spell. It would be your almost-spell."

"But I can use the mirror spell on my cousin. She looks almost exactly like me! And then I can capture her friend and because I look almost like her, he will be captivated by me instead of her."

"You are the mirror image of your cousin. You are not your cousin."

"But when I look in the mirror, I look just like my cousin. Why doesn't he react to me as he does to her??? I used the mirror spell on her and he didn't react to the image at all."

"Use the mirror spell on yourself. The mirror image of you is your almost-cousin. I told you, strangers rearrange the spell, and if you make her in the mirror of his eyes, he will only react to her. If he is attracted to her, he will be attracted to your almost-cousin. But if he is not, then this almost-cousin will be just as loathsome. Either way, a simple mirroring spell will give you the answer you seek because the simplest way to unlock a secret is to use the lock itself to make an extra key."

"So magic doesn't change the rules?"

"You can change the form but not the rules of the form. There are many more ways to arrange the form of a horse but there is only one that makes it a unicorn. If you don't learn to cast the spell to make a white unicorn, don't be unhappy if it is blue?"

"Don't you like blue unicorns?"

"I think they are grand in a field of pink daffodils, but not in field of green grass. Context is everything. If you erase the context, all you have is a blue horse with a horn on its forehead which you must admit, isn't very magical."

"But I am magical? Can't I know everything all at once?"

"That you can, clever witch, but can you make sense of everything you know? And if you know everything, when you cast a spell, won't it create something new that you did not know before? How can that be? Will you still be you? Will your magic still be magical? That seems very dangerous, precocious little witch."

"How can I cast a spell to get what I want and still save my magic?"

"Look at Mr Mole. He digs forward, goes to and fro, and back, and around. Sometimes he digs across his own tunnel and then loses himself because he can't remember which tunnel was the first. He knows his own smell and that is all that keeps him out of the older tunnels. If he smells a tunnel from a different mole, he will follow the tunnel until he finds him and they fight."

"That seems awfully complicated."

"It is really very easy. Smell is complicated but Mr Mole is born able to do that complicated thing. It is much like you are born to do magic. But the mole doesn't find digging to be any more complicated than sniffing and scratching. It is a very simple spell even if it produces long and complicated tunnels. He only has to know how to dig dirt as the dirt presents itself to him, one dirty bit of dirt at a dig; he leaves the details of digging to the moment. Otherwise, he becomes a tunnel digger instead of a mole just as your unicorns become horses. Perhaps you should wish for horses with horns and they will appear as unicorns. Don't try to describe a spell to make a unicorn. Make the magic that makes the unicorn just as the mole
doesn't dig the tunnel, he tunnels."

"Is the mole more magical than I am, Uncle?"

"The mole can make the tunnel through the ground; he cannot make the ground through the tunnel. He can go forward in his tunnel or backwards, but he cannot regain a single second of his time. He can push every particle of dirt aside, but he cannot put them all back exactly as they were. The longer the tunnel he digs, the more uncertain he is of where he is. The more he eats, the fatter he becomes. The fatter he becomes, the more earth he must move. The more earth he moves, the slower he moves and the hungrier he becomes. Every little particle of earth grows bigger even as his happiness diminishes. Even as his tunnels trace the ground making patterns to and fro, the earth within them is less orderly and has less food for him to find."

"But if he digs less, won't he quit growing?"

"He doesn't care that he is fatter; only that he is hungry."

"Then he is a silly silly mole. He doesn't know anything."

"On the contrary, little witch. He knows much more about digging holes than you do about casting spells."

"But he is silly. He can't remember what he ate."

"He knows that he is hungry or not hungry. He recognizes food when he sees it but he doesn't think much about it being different from other kinds of food. You see, when we say something IS something, we hide as much as we uncover. The naming of the thing unnames all of the other things. What do you call the spell you cast to capture your cousin's boyfriend?"

"Mother told me to call it the Mirror Spell, although Father called it something else."

"Your Mother is the Namer of Names in your house, but does that make your Father's
names less powerful when used in spells?"

"If I can't remember them, I guess it does."

"And there is the rub, my forgetful little witch. The past is only a little more determined than the future. For the past, we only have witnesses. For the future, we only have victims. So even if we believe in the future, we can also only believe in the past."

"Then what is true?"

"What we are doing now. The mole believes in his tunnels. He doesn't ask if his tunnels are good mole tunnels, he uses them to find food."

"He looks tired."

"He is. Tunneling is hard work."

"Is Mr. Mole lonely?"

"Yes, but he is happy when he is alone because he doesn't have to share his food and his tunnel isn't crowded. From time to time, he comes out of his tunnel and searches until he finds another mole to mate with, but eventually, he forgets her and returns to tunneling."

"His friend must be lonely too."

"She is, but she may find another Mr. Mole digging around."

"I don't want to be lonely."

"No, you don't. That would make you unhappy."

"Yes. But leaving her to fend for herself, that is wrong. Does Mr Mole have a soul?"

"I can't say. A soul is something my staff cannot touch, my ears cannot hear, nor my tongue taste. I don't see it. Perhaps I feel it but no spell I can cast can make it more real than any other illusion you can make with your magic. Perhaps he does, but it doesn't seem to make a difference of his desire to dig tunnels."

"Do I have a soul?"

"I can't say. Would you be different if you didn't? Can you be other than you are?"

"I can be anything. I am a witch. That is my destiny."

"Your destiny comes of the making of making, not the air you breathe or the water you drink or even the forms you take. Desire is the cause of causes, and the end of causes. You do not become what you will, but what you will becomes you. It may not make you better but it will make you different."

"On purpose?"

"With purpose."

"Who's?"

"Yours."

"When does my purpose make a difference?"

"When your difference makes a difference you wish for."

"Do my wishes make me different than what I am?"

"Do you know what you are made of?"

"Mother says I am made of stardust and her wishes."

"And your Mother would know. The mole is also made of stardust and he wishes to dig alone and be unbothered while he finds food. But does a star wish to be a mole?"

"Stars are bright and shiny. The mole lives in a dark tunnel and cannot abide the light of day. I don't understand how a star can wish to be a lonely old mole."

"Because a star can become dust and stardust can be everywhere and for a very long time. It bumps into itself over and over again, changing itself into every thing you see, hear, feel, touch and taste. It can become all things even a lonely and hungry mole. Where there is one mole digging, there are others but each in his own tunnel. Mr. Mole makes himself happy, safe and fat in his loneliness. You make yourself happy, safe and beautiful with your wishes."

"I am tired."

"Magic is hard work."

"What do you wish for, Uncle?"

"I wish to make toys and to make you laugh?"

"Then why can't you make toys for Mr. Mole so he will laugh too?"

"I cannot make the toy be all things because then it would be the world and the world is not a toy. So I make toys of all the things I find in the world and give them to you because you like toys. The world is complicated and big but my toys are simple and little; yet as you play with my toys, the world is made a little better and a little simpler."

"Is this progress?"

"Do you feel good right now?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because you make me laugh? Do you feel bad right now, Uncle?"

"I am a mole, but I am happily digging."

"You are very silly, Uncle!"

"Then, why are you laughing?"

"Because I am happy!"

"Well, that's progress."

Iraq and Symmetrical Network Response

Here's a short thought to entertain yourself with. What if Iraq is acting as a host for breeding anti-terrorist, anti-fundamentalist, even anti-Muslim antibodies in the form of the troops and other personnel deployed there? Is this an effort that like Niels Jerne's network theory of immune response (self-regulating, self-organizing) is creating the next generation of public safety responders?

When they come home, a lot of them will get jobs in the public safety systems. Given the National Response Plan, a doctrine will be in place that is essentially just in time and networked with primacy given to local response. All that system requires to work is for it to be staffed by the analogs of anti-bodies and anti-antibodies that already have the recognition patterns for the kinds of antigens anticipated to be troublesome in this century. Recognition is the key requirement. As soon as the anti-Muslim receptors are eliminated, the ability to recognize the anti-Western behavior without indulging in self and other thinking would be priceless.

Maybe this is a scary thought, but it could be precisely what will work.

A Blessing for The Chinese New Year

To the People of China everywhere:

May your children be awakened every day by the loud crowing of the rooster, may they enjoy long lives of prosperity blessed by the gods of the Three Realms, and before they sleep each night, may their shadows dance beneath the loveliness of the far-away moon.

len

Take This Job and Shove It

On the drive home, National Public Radio said the Pope is considering tendering his resignation. Hmmm. By all accounts, the Pope is the representative of God On Earth.

To what interoffice address does the Pope send his resignation and who approves it?

Does the Pope get to keep his accrued vacation and overtime?

Where does the Pope go to get away from the Boss anyway?

What kind of 401k or stock options do you get for working for the Almighty?

and finally

Does the Pope have to sign a waiver agreeing not to work for the competition for six months?

Just Another MADnic Monday

Reading Tim Bray's blog this morning and replying to Paul Downey about a MotorHead video, I found I had to review the definition of a stochastic process.

Maybe it's just me, but the fact that probability space for a stochastic process is labeled by a giant W is the universe laughing about the last election or at the electorate with SUVs sporting the bumper stickers of President Bush.

"Roll The Dice, Martha! Shorly he l'arned sumpin' in the last f'ar y'ars."

... but chance has no memory and neither does George W. We could try the Democrats again, but they keep coming up with really complicated plans and as any chaos theorist or stage magician can tell you, the longer the spell, the less likely the outcome is to be what you predict.

This is the best. It comes from a lecture by Doyle Farmer:

"Creating reality
Guys like you are ‘in what we called the reality-based community’, defined as people who ‘believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernable reality. That’s not the way the world really works anymore. We’re an empire now, and when we act we create our own reality.’
A senior advisor to G.W. Bush, to Ron Susskind"

As Tim Bray says, ya just can't make these things up. It's just another Alfred E. Neumann kind of day. "What, Me Worry?"

BOO!! The GooglieMan Is Gonna GETCHA!

Every other day, yet another article appears telling us that our privacy rights will be trampled by the ever expanding reach of data mining efforts. Well, they're mostly right and in a non-random state space, that is, if the future is predicated on the past, they (whoever THEY are in your control hierarchy) will abuse this stuff.

In case it is the cops that scare you, you should be aware that their computer skills, their infrastructure and their time are limited quite a bit more than you might think. On the other hand, Google and other super Wal-Marts of data aggregation are out there wheeling and dealing to get ever more interfaces to ever more private data stashes. Google says they will do no evil, but as a veteran of watching companies founded by good people eventually being taken over by people whose only care is for their stockholders, when the price is right, virtues are a commodity. So, yes, it will be your credit agencies, doctors, car and hotel rental websites etc. that will do most of the heavy lifting to get the goods on you. If you were listening, during the State of the Onion speech, The W snuck in one of the pet projects which is to ensure that ALL medical records are digitized. In the name of better access to Viagra, we will surrender privacy about ED to the parapsychologists of crime who want to project trends about criminal inflation based on private deflation. As the song says, "Nobody knows you when you're down and out", but these systems keep track just in case.

So is this trend inevitable? Unfortunately, yes, but if you are worried about the locals, study this. CFR 28 Part 23 provides the guidelines for agencies that want/need to access your records in the conduct of a criminal investigation. We should be lobbying our legal representatives at all levels of government to ensure this is applied properly. Don't rely on the Department of Homeland Security to get this right. They are rather busy figuring out how to make it easier to do. Don't rely on the World Wide Web Consortium to get it right. They are rather busy figuring out how to make it more reliable to do.

The geeks don't care and the suits are going to make more money doing it. If you care, you better vote this issue into being by keeping it in front of your congressional reps and local politicos. There is a a lot of digital ink devoted to scaring you into giving up your rights but there is a lot less to be afraid of and knowing more about you won't help them protect you from them. Criminal investigations don't work that way although bits of emergency response do. In the second case, all they need is your location and a way to call you, email you, or orient you toward that big clanging bell in the town square. They don't need your life history. Total Information Awareness is BS, friends and neighbors. They don't need it to do their jobs. They just want it. That SHOULD bother you.

You should be concerned, but the guidelines already exist and your best protection is to know about them. Hit that link above and do a bit of reading. If you see in a footnote of the back page of your newspaper that they are ammending CFR 28 Part 23, PAY ATTENTION.

Will I Watch Bush's Speech?

I don't think so. That would be too much like listening to your ex-wife's husband talk about renovating your house when you know he had to lie to get the job and your house.

No. It's my baby girl's eleventh birtday today. We'll celebrate that and watch "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" on DVD. It's the same theme as the de factotem's speech but the CGI is waaaaaay better.

As he does every year, my son tossed her out the door into the yard this morning. The good news: she didn't see her shadow on the way back in to kick his head around the living room as she does every year. The difference: her feet are much bigger this year. So, winter will be shorter. He will be too.

Just Say No To Desktops

The ultimate act of government control in this century will be to outlaw the personal computer. I can think of some more technically efficient approaches (outlaw compilers and scripting editors), but they are more complicated. No, the 'take no prisoners' simple approach is to outlaw the personal computer. What is left is the thin system, of course, that enables delivery of services and content, but absolutely removes the ability to build anything useful locally and without oversight.

Why do this Draconian thing?

Simple. Anything profitable and digital quickly gets burgled and its creator gets buggered in today's "I want it, I want it now, and I want it for free" entitled generation, and computer geeks young and old, smart and not so smart have stepped up to the challenge around the world. The virus writers are simply immature show offs or curmudgeon terrorists compared to the devils of the freeware open source open content generations. These burglars are the real pros who have dedicated their skills to relieving the rich and powerful of their means of holding onto wealth and power: distribution.

From Napster to BitTorrent to MythTV, the systems to liberate content from the shackles of the pay-to-play and monthly cable bills grow in strength and intensity and no one seems to be able to stop them.

I have. Outlaw the personal computer. That will put it on a par with Schedule A drugs. We all know how successful that war has been.

Just Say No to Personal Computing.

:-)

Farhenheit 911

Last weekend, the wife rented Farhenheit 911, Michael Moore's documentary of the involvement of the Bush family with the Saudi royal family and the effects of the entanglement on American foreign relations. He goes on to document the war in Iraq in the beginning and the web of half-truths and deceit surrounding that. She rented it because my soon to be sixteen year old son is very interested in this, and as an American kid approaching draft age, that's a healthy interest.

He made the astute comment that this was a one-sided presentation. True, I said, but if even a fourth of it is true, it is scary nonetheless.

Post-election, most have settled down into the typical American cynicism about our government's actions, and given yesterday's Iraqi-election-under-the-umbrella, one can begin to forget that this is a country that did nothing to justify being invaded by a foreign army. Iraq is now as Secretary Powell said, something we broke so we own the problem. I don't see a quick exit strategy and my judgement is that before this is over, there will be theocratic rule in Iraq, or we will be occupying that country for the next two decades.

What is bothering me is the blase attitude toward this the hard right is creating in America. Fear is still squelching any honest appraisal of the decisions of the neocons driven by their brownshirt standins, the Christian Coalition of the Willing to Be Fooled. With initiatives to force school systems to teach the barely masked religious dreck "intelligent design" in American science classes, a full press on getting rid of abortion rights, and resolute refusal to look at the growing surveillance systems as anything more than a necessary surrender of personal liberties, these take-no-prisoners forces of darkness are fast putting out the light of freedom and democratic thought just as their leader stands at his bully pulpit proclaiming the right and necessity of the Americans to do anything to anyone anywhere anytime to advance American interests.

The exception to this media blitz designed to keep us frightened and quiescent is black radio. If you listen to the black college stations, among the cool grooves you will hear commentary from black leaders and they are vocal about their opposition to these policies. When you count the numbers of poor white and black soldiers and look at the numbers of affluent Americans who are notable by their absence in the US military forces at this time, you understand their opposition. The price for opposition is the administration has sent the IRS attack dogs to get rid of the NAACP's non-profit tax status. That ought to make them heel, yeah? Not bloody likely.

This is VietNam again; a war fought by the poorest of the American economic classes. The difference is that during VietNam, the American middle class and upper class kids in college took to the streets to oppose the war. Talking to some over the weekend, they have that same dumb attitude that Britney Spears expressed so glowingly in Moore's film. It scares the hell out of me. Unfortunately, the war will have to take out more of their classmates, they will have to go to more funerals, and then maybe they will get it. The kids of the rich in America don't fight this kind of war, but here in the American South, their classmates do. Willingly. For now. Some returning from duty are coming back with changed attitudes about that decision. Now they know.

The world is still watching and America is becoming ever more isolated. The world hoped the American electorate would do the right thing in the last election and when they failed to do that, their admiration and affection for the American people diminished. Perhaps a few more of us should rent Michael Moore's film and watch it, if not for the first time, then with a few of those who stand on the sidelines. I'm not sure if it does more than make us mad, but at least we don't sleep as soundly, and frankly, we shouldn't. Bad things are happening, and even if Moore is one sided, everything I read and hear and see says he isn't completely wrong.

Those of you who think Bush will be a lame duck, think again. He has the lack of will of the American public in his back pocket, and supreme command of the American military in his front. He has both houses of Congress. In two years, you get a chance to change that. You might want to.

Marketing X3D: The Basics

1. What situations will X3D make the better solution? In what way? What needs are met? Listening is everything. Timing is everything else. Location is opportunity.

2. What will the customer or user lose if they don't use X3D? Risk aversion is more powerful than opportunity.

3. When is X3D the classier approach and worth a little more money? Prestige is not cheap. When is X3D the cheaper approach and worth a little more time? Repetition is expensive.

4. X3D is boring as a technology. Interactive solutions are exciting as an experience.

5. A world with the customer's image in it is prettier than a picture of you.

6. The larger the number, the more the risk. Think small. Scale large.

7. In a world of ends, value is not had by creating a completely new world but by adding one that cooperates. In X3D, at the endpoint is a new world.

8. Creating a new service is better than competing with an existing service.

9. If you can do something but your competitor can do more, you will lose. If you can do more but your competitor is already doing something better, you will lose. If you can do something better and do more of it, you will win.

10. It isn't enough to be different, but it helps.

11. Know precisely what you want to do.
Practice doing that.
Do that every day in front of those who want that.

12. Location. Practice. Persistence.

The Beginner's Mind

In the philosophy of Zen (chan), there is the concept of beginner's mind.

Essentially, the mind of the master and the mind of the beginner have the same form and this is revealed in their works. The beginner will create a simple work because they don't know enough to attempt a complex work, and the master will create simple works because they know enough to do that. The differences will be subtle, stylistic, but immediately apprehended by even a casual viewer. In the work of the beginner, one may only see simplicity but may also see the genius of the universe that comes serendipitously to the beginner's mind when it is sensitive and in motion. In the work of the master, one will see both simplicity and the genius of the universe that comes continuously because the master's mind is empty and still, therefore, ready.

I see this in XML design. The schemas of beginners are simple and contain just those elements and attributes needed to do a small task. The schemas of masters are simple and contain just those elements and attributes needed to do a small task in the context of a larger task. The schemas of the journeymen are often very large, use as many of the features of the schema language as they can manage, and attempt to capture all of the tasks in a single grand unified design.

Some think such are the product of committees and blame the size of the committee or the process, but committee work is really the work of one or two individuals who collect and attempt to synthesize all of the requirements while maintaining consensus. They create risk averse schemas because they think that the safe bet is the right bet when in truth, loss is part of the art.

"What to leave in, what to leave out" - Bob Seger

The work also reflects the lifecycle of the committee or working group that may have completed its initial task and now is attempting to gather up other tasks in an act of self-perpetuation. Such works are never completed because the work reflects the desire to remain affiliated so they never have the properties of beginner's mind or mastery. They just fatten and rot. If one compared this to theatre, they are soap operas, a never ending story instead of sit-coms, episodic with recurring characters.

Unfortunately for the current period of XML design and fielding, and more unfortunately, procurement, we see mostly the works of journeymen and committees. It is notable that few have the patience, will, resources, or opportunity to do enough of these to master the art of simple effective design, and those that do are often led away from these design jobs to management and other tasks that provide more means but fewer challenges to the skill that they labored so hard to master.

Intuition is not trustworthy. Technique is not trustworthy. Practice is trustworthy. Sit before the Buddha every day if you wish to learn the artless art.

The Blue Flame

There are moments of creativity that are spontaneous and Heisenbergian. If you try to make them happen, they don't. If you try to observe them too hard, they dissolve. If you try to repeat them, you can't. They are the true moment of jhana, the blue diamond of the net of Indra, or simply, the blue flame. We live for these moments because they form the clearest memories in which emotion and motion blend into perfect expression of desire, longing, and completion.

I was sitting outside the rehearsal for the musical last Sunday night in the entrance way for the city hall where rehearsals are being held. Two rooms away, forty or so teen agers and pre-pubescents were learning the complex choreography for their scenes in the Emerald City. I took my nylon string Godin, a very serviceable work axe, to practice classical pieces and noodle improvised sections because the entrance area is a sixty foot tall enclosure with a deep echo clear as the glass windows that make up the walls. This room produces a beautiful sound with nylon strings. I was improvising an arrangement for "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" because, given the show, this tune is stuck in my head like a 2x4 wooden beam stuffed through a tree by a tornado.

One of the principals in the show is an opera diva who for this show plays the part of Auntie Em. The community chorus is loaded with singing talent and as the Wizard/Professor in the show, neither she nor I sing in it. As I sat there noodling, she came out to leave for the night, then stopped for a moment and began to sing the song that in the show is sung by our 15 year old ingenue.

For just a few moments, in the late night dark, in the cold entrance way, we had a perfect moment of collaboration. There was no planning, no words of direction or even suggestion, just a pure blue flame that only comes from the lack of direction, the absence of will. It comes of a shared desire for emotional expression. It was beautiful, clear, pure, clean, so satisfying and unrepeatable.

To be in the flame, for the perfect moment, that is why we trained, why we kept our gifts alive even past the peak of our ambitions in the world. To feel the flame, that is enough. It is the perfect expression, and when the last note dies in the echo, we breathe that note, release it, and are complete.

Acronymphobia

I was reading an interview with John Carmack yesterday. It seems the DoomMaster has decided to spend his game millions playing a real life and death game: he wanted to compete for the Ansari X-Prize. Of course, Burt Rutan has that now. Some games require significant practice and despite Carmack's prodigious self-learning capability, aeronautics is more than knowing how to build a Newtonian propulsion system. Rocket science is something rocket scientists do best.

The interesting comment he made was that he was reading mostly papers written in the Fifties and Sixties because he disliked the acronym-filled papers written from the 1970s forward. As someone who worked for NASA in the early eighties as a technical writer for the Marshall Space Flight Center where Saturn V and Shuttle engine development was done and later for DoD contractors, I commiserate with Carmack. Acronyms become the magic spell words of technological social networks. Having mastery of the latest acronyms is the precise equivalent of the now short phrases and acronyms of chat, instant messaging, and yes, the gaming community. They determine who is in, who is out, who is hot and who is not.

In other words, they not only determine what you know, they are used to rank membership in the social network of a technology, and of course, Carmack resents that. It is as if he is being denied access to the cheat codes in a game and as a result, he will lose consistently to better connected players. In a technology such as manned space flight, when that happens, your avatar gets removed permanently usually in a big noisy fireball a few feet above the ground.

One should know when one isn't ranked to play certain games and when the network is telling one not to play. Acronymphobia is nature's way of telling you that you may not be up to a game.

"On finding the sign, apply your mind. Thus you will not sleep."

The Second Term

Tim Bray makes marvelous observations about the inauguration. Some replies from the voice of the resistance in the heart of the Red States:

The Americans tolerate the war and the criticism of the war because they don't want to lose it. Fear of losing is the heart of their viewpoint. They lost in VietNam. Regardless of what else happens, they don't want to lose again.

President Bush is becoming irrelevant. He is now in the second day of his last term and counting. Largely, I think most of us are ignoring him.

The bad thing will be if his lust for misadventure continues. If for example, Seymour Hersch is right and he and his have some design on Iran, he may have a much tougher time getting that past the Congress, and remember, we now know how to impeach a President without too much fanfare. Would the Republican majority allow that? They would if they thought it was going to cost them personally.

We aren't lusting for war down here. We don't like this war in Iraq, we know we were lied to, and we are looking for an exit strategy. The challenge in the Middle East will be to discover a means to keep its culture of monarchic and theocratic rule and still feed its people or its people will feed on it, because this is a world of growing interdependencies, particularly, economically.

Where were the jihadhists when Saddam was torturing his people? In their mosques. Where are they now? In their mosques. Bush can't change that. Time to deal.

Fish Herding: Open Source Management

In a predator/prey ecology, the open source community are much like fish. Their schooling behavior is observable and appropriate. They use simple rules for collision avoidance and nutrient seeking, and they collect closely and densely to fend off predators. Over time, schooling prey tend to develop their lateral sensors exclusively because the behavior of managing position in a loosely coupled herd dominates their sensory evolution. The fact of genotypic crossover within the herd and a slow rate of mutation mean the herd phenotype converges quickly.

So, as in boids of a feather, they flock and mate together. Because they are not isolated, they are increasingly homogenized. The effect of propinquity is to increase homophily. The rules for significaion and legitimization stabilize the relationships reflexively. They are well-protected and well-schooled.

But the shape of the school in motion is shaped by the distance to and types of predators. The predators are solitary and diverse. Being large means they consume less and digest slowly. The 3/4 power law effect of their metabolic rate and the need for speed when culling individuals away from the herds drives their sensory systems toward forward looking stereo sensors. Their hearing is not as good because ears are used to control lateral motion and as a non-schooling network, lateral motion is deemphasized.

Schools do not need leaders. Predator families do but predators do not school and emphasize an almost darwinian evolution based on a fitness function. They adapt quickly. Schooling systems do not need a fitness function; they use the simple rules and shared goals of consumption to effect direction. Their phenotypic change is very slow and their size can increase in an almost unlimited dimension.

Neither form wins. The predators cull individuals away from the herd and consume them. The schools maintain formation and mate frequently so they always have a reasonable replacement rate as long as they remember where to find food and don't overfeed. Overfeeding slows their motion and because they are schooling, they slow the herd which leads to a rise in the rate of predation. A school that grows too small or fails to maintain close distance is ripe for rapid predation. A predator that exhausts a small school on which it depends for vital nutrition may starve or be forced into a rapid adaptation mode which reduces its size over generations as the metabolic rates rise to compensate for the loss. Catastropic loss may cause a predator type to disappear, but the relief effect on the prey school is short as this is an opportunity for a different predator.

Predators learn to herd prey. Smart predators don't overfeed. If the open source community is to be a source of innovation, special care for culling and feeding must be taken by their predators. Of course, a prey society can evolve into a predatory society, but the need for balance remains the same. They will only be changing roles in the ecology of the games, not the rules.

This is what Lawrence Lessig doesn't get.

Social Networks and The Innovation Challenge

In researching network theories as applied to organizations, discourse, games, and identity, I've been pondering the power of the social network to dominate the other networks and asking myself, is this most effective way to run a company? It seems that the current position of the company in the cycles of event types determines the network that should be chosen for the most effective communications media. A company that is seeking stability relies on the social network. Why? Research indicates that the social network favors the oldest relationships as these have longer lifecycles and have settled into stable orbits. Social networks do provide a fast and efficient under the table messaging medium.

What about a company that has evolved in a sub-optimum mode for innovation and now needs to make rapid changes to kick start innovation efforts?

The social networks are deadly to this goal. The tendancy of the members to preserve status quo ostracizes any source of new ideas that threaten the social oligarchy unless that source reinforces the positions of the oligarchs.

Social networks are necessary and where one doesn't exist, human resources and management will create one. However, without the challenge of learning and adopting technologies appropriate to the environment BEFORE it emerges, these networks only preserve power and often at the expense of adaptation and flexible response. Smart executives know that if the social network is the only effective means of communication, the company is dead and just doesn't know it.

Schadenfreude as a concept has become a cliche, but it is the one really effective means to eliminate innovation. Humiliation drives out thought just as its close cousin, fear, kills it. White pigging is alive and well in the social networks of the companies dominated by the formerly successful innovators who cannot accept that just as pop artist must, they have to know when to get off the stage and let a fresh act take it. Even when we have fans, we may not be doing our business much good to keep on giving them the old hits.

Doing Business With The Swarm

While it is certainly true the old networks tend toward dead speech patterns, and that swarm behavior typifies the open network model of communications and transactions, have you ever actually tried to buy honey from the swarm?

You can't. You have to follow them back to the hive, smoke 'em out, and steal it.

The superior bee keeper does not negotiate with the bees; he harvests their production and sells it. As much as one resists the deadening of language and behavior based on businessSpeak, it is useful to know when to use a protocol and when to dump it just as a jazz musician knows when to comp, when to improvise and when to play the head note for note. Emergence is not chaos: it is order modulating out of chaos and back to the edge for more honey.

The competitors believe business is a chess game and they have to beat the other players. The innovators believe business is a means to get the bees to dance together, so they cooperate with them. Command and control is replaced by converse and learn. "Readiness is all."

Drinking From The Well of Our Incompetence

There was a discussion in my cube yesterday with an engineer that I thought interesting in the context of attempts to get better growth and performance from our company. The position of the engineer was lack of communication between development and management is a problem for many companies, but this is really the fault of management because they cannot understand engineering. If the manager takes the time to explain his or her techniques, tools and terminology, a programmer with their assumed mathematical skills will likely understand what the manager knows, but the reverse cannot be assumed. Programming is innately complex and mysterious and no matter how long and how well the programmer explains their techniques, tool, and terminology, the manager will never catch on. For this reason, the arguer went on, development decisions and design decisions must be left strictly to the engineering staff. Interference by product planners, line managers, upper management, and for God's sake, anyone from the sales staff is just interference and time wasted plus exposure to risk that the product will not perform.

Do you believe this?

My position is this: programming is not that complex although some applications are. Any discipline practiced widely enough suffers from from terminology legacy, that is, the language used is likely a polyglot with layers of overlapping terms accrued from many years of practice and reinvention. That which is assumed to be science by some is just common practice. Further, any terms acquired in a discussion or description that are not applied with some regularity become meatware clutter, that is, they can be pronounced but applying them well without experience is dubious. It becomes a case of "A little learning is a dangerous thing. Drink deep or taste not of the Pierian spring" as Willy the Shake wrote.

Truthfully, of those of you who sling code for a living, how many of you know how discounted cash flow (DCF) and earnings-based valuations work and can be reconciled? Do you know what the key performance variables are for forecasts (sales growth, profit margins, working capital turnover and long-term asset turnover) as well as financial leverage and cost of capital? Do you know how to get those values (from whom, who is credible, how do you vette the data, etc.)?

You might be able to write the code to calculate the values, but I suspect that given some reasonable practice, so can your manager. I also suspect your manager has a better grasp of when to use that software and when to trust their gut. All the counter examples exist on the other side of the knowledge chasm, of course, but I think the point is made.

Too often, we don't trust each other and that is really why so many of our businesses fail or have mediocre growth. We do have to trust each other to do their job. Otherwise, we are drinking from the well of our incompetence.

Will Work For Food

Having just read some blogs extolling the need for free music for podcasting, I feel the "Will Work for Food" blues coming on. The web equivalent of food is fan mail coming in our email boxes. MP3.Com promised us incremental payments if the downloads of our songs rose above a certain rate within a certain time. None of it materialized except for those sharp enough to game the system, and that made it exactly the same deal we got from the major labels if we were sharp enough to get a deal.

On the web, musicians are required to acknowledge that the reward for spending years to learn, the money to get the gear, the thousands of hours of experimentation and revision, and the time away from good things like sex and beer is a bit of fan mail and some snarky ignorant kids sending critiques. Money? No one pays for anything do they?

No, if you really want the money, you have to do what your favorite girls who hang out late night at IHOP do after their gigs: no free samples, no free services, cash or an approved credit card, and "give them what they want" ethics; that is, if you were starving as a street musician playing your original songs, you'll probably starve as a podcaster for the same reasons. At the end of the day, popular tastes are the ultimate example of emergent effects and unless you've mastered the art of the network effect, you are just one more isolated node in a sea of digital clutter.

Hookers and professional musicians know they have one thing in common with the Real Estate witches:

Location. Location. Location.

Unless you are on a street known for the kind of service you are selling, your customers won't be there and you won't be shreddin' the 'natch. If you want to sell your music, find an ipodcaster who needs what the RIAA (Real International Access to Action) pimps won't give them: music tailored to the location. Work out a one time charge or services in kind, then move on.

"Connectivity: the relation of an agent to its neighbors, it can be sparsely connected (only affected by a few neighbors), fully connected (interfacing with every other agent in the system), or some intermediate arrangement. This parameter critically affects the dynamics of the system."

So, pick a place that has lots of traffic looking for the kind of thing you have to offer, but specifically, of the kind you can make. No Bach at the BoogiePalace.

Amazon.com has a new deal for independent labels and others with the ability to make an mp3: a free downloads section. Read the contract. It is about what MP3.COM offered but it doesn't pretend you will make money and you do give them a lot of rights to use your music to make money. It is 'exposure', same as that street corner. Heck, at least they could provide you the equivalent of an 'open axe case' into which people can toss spare change while paying for something else in a neighboring site. Perhaps that is what these sites really need. When someone pays for a book or a used Masserati, they round up their purchase price and name a starving artist to send the spare change to, who of course, must be on the Amazon.com site to be eligible.

At least that's something. Keep in mind: music is not software. Free software gets reused a lot. Free music gets one or two listenings then becomes bit bucket filler. Today I get free email from betwitched.net. At least on that corner of the street, they do appreciate the effort it took to record the song and give it away.

At Amazon.com, I'll be 'exposed'. Brrrr.

Tootsie Fruitsie

My good friend Dave Blalock, had me over last night for a birthday fete. He put on a copy of The Marx Brothers "A Day At The Races" and went to the scene entitled "Tootsie Fruitsie". He then asked me to identify which company's business model it exemplified.

I highly recommend the exercise.

After that, we watched a 1966 Avengers episode in which Diana Rigg as Mrs. Peel dances a middle Eastern dance dressed in less than... less. There is a lot to be said for DVDs, slo-mo, and freeze frame.

I highly recommend the exercise.

Would You Like to Upsize Your Order?

Because proposal work is tedious and maddening, and sometimes maddening and tedious, one must have some fun. This week I reviewed a Request For Proposal for a database system that requires 'predictive intelligence'. Two items stood out in the spreadsheet:

28) iii

32) viii

That's the whole statement for those two requirements. Now it is the job of the analsyt to interpret vague requirements and that is what I did.

28) iii

"Vendor interprets this in accordance with the Third Eye requirement and bids four weeks to develop this as an XML interface. The customer agency is required to select and provide a Third Eye system to the contractor for the purpose of developing and testing this interface. Vendor shall provide an XML Schema for the EspXML language."

32) viii

"Vendor interprets this as the Instant Answer requirement. Vendor bids third party Eight Ball Magic Answer product from Whammo. Customer will receive Train The Trainer courses for this product. The bid is item cost current on delivery ($9.99 at Wal-Mart) plus a 30% markup. Training costs are for one week at $5995."

Somedays, this business is fun.

Innovation and Ideas: Understand the Difference To Pick The Means

Reading Tim Bray's blog on corporate blogging and outward and inward facing blogging, it occurs to me that when espousing the idea of open vs closed blogging, one should look at or reference the concepts of clusters and long distance inputs. See these articles on six degrees of invention and on innovation diffusion.

This resonates with the concepts of Information Ecosystems. To the point:

1. Ideas and innovations are not the same thing. Ideas can be blogged, shared on maillists or even in more controlled tech, forumed. Innovations are diffused through customer adoption, that means, real running code/product. If one wants to diffuse an innovation a wiki or even a UDDI registry are the means. The means are determined by appetite for messiness and risk/reward tolerance. Messy systems diffuse more ideas at a higher rate. More orderly systems diffuse innovations more predictably. Again, skating at the edge of chaos..

2. Clusters tend to retard ideas but diffuse innovation. Big changes tend to come from long distance relationships where distance can be conceptual or spatial. Clustered relationships can have very long lifecycles. Look at the Markup Tribe, as Tim named them. Innovation is inherently collaborative and so is leadership. To the point of Tim's blog, closed blogging systems don't take advantage of long distance relationships. They tend to reinforce the local clusters. "Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups." ;-)

3. Mid career employees are rising in value, not diminishing. Just as one acquires a company to acquire a market (not just the IP or technology), one hires an employee for their cluster membership (analogous to the old, hired them for their rolodex idea and why your resume includes your organizational memberships. It should also include your Google rating and Google count for contributions to mail lists, wikis and open source projects).

4. Companies are no longer a means to capture and hold ideas but a means to diffuse innovations through customer relationships. Customers can also be a long distance source of ideas (usually are in any RFP-driven business).

5. Ideas can't be patented. Innovations can. Note that Sony recently announced that they have patented 'emergent semantics' which is an idea that has been discussed for years here and elsewhere. The idea that semantics emerge bottom-up as systems negotiate to do tasks is venerable. I don't know what is innovative about the Sony patents, but like a lot of software patents, they may not pass the obviousness test.

This comes down to the appetite for ideas and the risk management for innovation. One can separate and manage these in theory, but in the real ecosystem, when the good ideas stop coming, the clusters lose their vitality and the innovation stops. Coming from a company that formerly had the mantra, "Shut up and go back to work!" now attempting to innovate by committee, it will be an interesting test of the learning curve of this company to see how long it takes them to find out that forums are ok for innovation, but for ideas, outward facing blogging is better.

XML 2004: The People Who Changed The World

Someone asked on XML-Dev why the average age at the XML 2004 Conference is older than the usual at such events.

Because we aren't afraid to bully our managers? ;-)

Possibly because as one person noted, XML is thought to be only a syntax, therefore, what can an XML conference be about? Smart players in the business know that a lot of contacts are made, hallway business is conducted, and one can survey how well some application languages are doing or aren't. It's recon work. But this isn't the reason to send the younger players.

Send them to meet the people who changed the world.

The people at this conference are true innovators and leaders. To be accepted among such people is an incomparable honor. They have a global view and a global agenda. They don't see the borders; they see the connections. In a business where most are competitors, they are collaborators. In a world where most are feeding themselves, they are feeding each other. In a market where most simply accept what the dominant vendors sell them, these people roll their own and then show everyone else how to do that too.

Some bits are intuition. I was fortunate to be seated at a table next to Norm Walsh and Paul Cotton as they did some TAG work over breakfast. The respect these two have for each other is right up front. It showed in their work and their conversation. Believe it or not, that single serendipitous encounter gave me the confidence to say, yeah, we can let go of SGML and push XML to the top of the stack. Markup is just stuff; people of high quality make all the difference, particularly when they show such respect and take genuine pleasure in each other's company. Keep in mind, these guys work for competing companies. It can be fun, it can be respectful, and it can still be competitive.

I sat with Henry Thompson and talked futures. The man has an enormous grasp of arts, science, history and philosophy. I was pretty awed and he was very patient.

Ed Dumbill is solid class. It is so easy to be distainful, and it's a lot of work to pay attention. Edd is an asset to O'Reilly in ways they may or may not know. The diplomat.

Simon St Laurent will always be a credit to whatever he works on. A good egg. Funny too and unafraid. Fearlessness is a rare thing.

Eve Maler: Wow.

Tim Bray and Lauren Wood: the King and Queen. I am deeply in their debt. They lead with smarts and heart and genuine ethics.

Michael Sperberg-McQueen: a bear of a man. A deeply joyful guy who stays on the right side of the argument.

Jelks Cabaniss: Friendly, caring, loves life.

Michael Kay: I didn't get nearly enough time to talk to him and I regret that. There isn't one of us who works with XML that doesn't owe Michael for the care and detail in his books and his help on XML-Dev.

Priscilla Walmsley: calm rivers run deep. Smart. At ease.

Michael Rys: patient with lesser mortals. I'm glad he and Soumitra Sengupta are on the other end of the chain that feeds me technology. They treat their competitor with the utmost respect and humor.

Dan Connoly: a lover of good musical gear. This is something we have in common. Serious dude. Detailed and attentive. His name is in the highest ranks and the earliest for the WWW. He is one of the very few who can truly be said to have made the WWW a reality.

Mike Champion: tough minded and amiable. Results matter to Mike.

Mitch Amiano: sincere and a listener.

Jon Bosak: A taciturn way, he called the XML party to order; then he started his *serious* work. Jon quietly and resolutely pulls the levers and things happen. As Bray said, "Don't bet against this guy."

Pamela Gennusa: the first SGMLer I met. She impressed me then with her command of the technical, the political and the practical knowledge of markup. Still the classiest woman in the business.

Ken Holman: The teacher. He brought for my first visit to Canada, and made me realize what wonderful neighbors we have to the north. Genuine and a family man.

Betty Harvey: She can toss a balloon javelin twice as far as the best man in the crowd. Strong and smiling, she lead the charge in the Beltway to get the web accepted as a standard platform.

Bob Glushko: full of restless energy, he made a business of XML and is still protecting the openness of markup by defending the IP from the bad guys. Don't get in this guy's way.

Matt Fuchs: He sees through the mysteries straight to the application. He is imaginative, down to earth, and very very insightful. His success has no effect on his personality. I think whoever his friends in high school were still are, and anyone he has met since.

Some play duets:

Debbie LePeyre and Tommi Usdin: The divas of the markup community. Not just technical but also spiritual and kind. Probably two of the best people one could have as bosses.

Steve Newcomb and Michele Biezunski: warriors from the old school. We've served together and it was all good. When I'm with them, I'm the student again.

Paul Prescod: a committed man. Cool under pressure and funny. Priceless.

Then there are the technical aha moments. It was worth the price of admission to watch Steve Pepper build the Topic Map example with the Ontopia Omnigator. After years of reading or hearing about topic maps, to watch someone sit there and confidently model one from the requirements of an attendee in real time, I understood it better than all of the previous experiences combined.

Then there was John Cowan's presentation of RelaxNG. It was the clearest exposition of the advantages of it I've been exposed to. John is incredibly intelligent and one heckuva good friend when needed.

There were many more but these are good examples.

One cannot help but be impressed by the XML community. Some people do business. Others have subtle understanding. The leaders of XML can do magic.

And that is what the younger crowd needs to see: leadership by example. It is waaay too easy on the web to become bloodless or crusty. If there is to be a better world, the kids have to see how the one they have is being made better by the people who know how. Employers do themselves a big favor exposing their younger employees to the best in the business. Let them meet the real heros, the people who changed the world.

Innovation is inherently a collaborative art. So is leadership.

The Code of Joy

I received a mail from someone who found my song "Sam (for Liz)" at the bewitched.net site. That song, given away to the web, gets me the most consistently positive response of any work I've done. I attribute that to the incredible love people have for Elizabeth Montgomery and the character of Samantha, but also the deep need people have to believe in the power of good, the strength of courage in the face of darkness, and the resolute faith that darkness will always be defeated by the light. Yet the strength, courage and faith come from the struggle of the individual. In this struggle, one can give in to fear and abandon the struggle to make a more positive world for self and other, or one can learn to recognize and amplify joy in the myriad forms people find it.

Much is being made about the codewords used to sell the agenda of the far right. Much is made about the issues of morality. Would anyone dispute that joy is a shared codeword for anyone who struggles? The best way to go forward is not to contribute to the despair or the anger, but to discover the code for joy. This is what we should be about practicing in our lives and the lives of those we share with. Letters like the one I quote below is how I know that in that one piece of work, I discovered a means to share joy and that this work resonates in the hearts of some whose needs for joy and determination to share their joyful gifts are so great, it is a thirst for life itself. When I offer up songs or poems on the web, I do wonder if it is the right thing to do. It is. Regardless of the topic, if the code is the code of joy, it always is.

With a little pride, but mostly the humbling feeling that some works are made of the power of the universe to seek the highest achievement of humans, joy, I share the following. Thanks Kris. You pulled me back from a dark chasm today. That is how joy works when it is shared.

"Hi,

I just heard your recording of your song "Sam". Thank you. I had tears in my eyes as I listened to it, and I am a 44 year old man. You have written a gentle love song with yearning. The music will stay in my mind as I hum/whistle it tomorrow. The words are so,...special, they say what I feel. For that too, I thank you. You are gifted in many areas, I do pray that your talent may be more widely recognised, as you well deserve it. Do you have any C.D.'s available?

As a child I grew up watching Bewitched when it first came out; I even remember when it was in black and white. Thursdays were my favorite day of all because that was the night Bewitched was on T.V. . No matter what was going on in my life, Bewitched could make it better. You see, Bewitched was also about being different and trying to fit in. Well, we moved a lot as I was growing up, plus I was a bit smarter than many other children my age and a bit of a loner. Later I finally accepted and came out as being gay, so being different and trying to fit in really hit home with me. In addition, my whole life I have always been very psychic, which I was afraid to share with others, as well as a few other "abilities" as well. Your song came at a perfect time for me, and an important time in my life as well.You see, at this point in my life I am being pushed forward in my psychic work to be doing very serious work as my abilities have been recognised, an! d because of my high level of abilities many people are urgeing me to go professional. I have been very hesitant in moveing forward with this, as it is "different" and others do not understand. Hearing your song "Sam" tonight has resolved my hesitation. From it, I now feel the strenghth to move forward with my abilities no matter how different. Sam would have done so. Your song meant a great deal to me tonight, and I wanted to write and let you know why your song was so important to me, and to thank you.

Kris Tondee"

Thank you, John Kerry

Thank you, John Kerry. Thank you for serving, thank you for leading, thank you for keeping alive the dream of the ultimate goodness of the American way. Of those duties that a leader may obligate to, the first duty of the American leader is to keep this dream alive. As this dream is passed on, it has always grown more powerful in its inspiration to make the real world more like that dream, a dream of justice for all, liberty denied none, and the rights of the common man honored as highly as the rights of the extraordinary.

That you did not win does not mean you are not the better leader, a strong and wise man, and that somehow this makes those who voted for you less satisfied and pleased to have done so. You make me remember that when the time came to tell this country that it had made a mistake, you saved the lives of men and women like myself, then draft age and unwilling to become conscientious objectors. We the very young who watched our older brothers and sisters go, and for those of us blessed by God to see them come home, there is the knowledge that the stories you told to Congress were truth. We knew the war had become something unwinnable because no matter how many battles we won, no matter how many Vietnamese and Americans died, there is no way to deny a country to the people who live in it without genocide. By understanding that the deepest oath of the officer is to protect the lives and liberty of the American people, you showed the true measure of the best of the American people, and the American soldier.

Understanding that you have obligations to your wife and family, to your friends, and to yourself, I nonetheless ask that you not do as other defeated Presidential candidates have done and step away from the platform. There are few times such as this when Americans so desperately need the leadership that only the very best of us can provide, and you are such an American. I and I think many others will be proud to work with you and with your wife to continue to keep the American dream alive. For this is the great treasure that we must pass to our children and this is the awesome promise we must keep to those who passed it to us.

Thank you, John Kerry. It is good to know you.

The Wizard of Oz

The key to the character of the Wizard is that he is a humbug in a world where all other creatures have their unique magic. A carnival veteran, he must organize his world using his talents of illusion and character to survive. The Wizard is the Professor, the Doorman, The Cabby and The Guard. To protect his illusion, he must adapt his character so that all approaches to the truth about him can be foreseen and directed. His magical skills are his illusions and his acting. Skilled in timing, pattern and the technical arts, he is able to portray convincingly, the Great and Powerful Oz.

Yet the face of the Professor when at last found out is the face of a man worn with the worries of his promises to fulfill dreams when all of his illusions only served to open the paths of those whom the Guard favored to enter his presence.Oz is mighty. The professor is careworn. The Guard is sympathetic. The Cabby is carefree. The Doorman is bothered.

Not a man of great personal courage, he was nonetheless a man of great wit and penetrating insight. The quests he sent his visitors on redressed the evils of great magic used to enslave the playful productive citizens of Oz. Though the Witches were all powerful, they had no power over each other. This kept the light and dark powers of Oz in balance. Yet balance is not peace. The evil witches were free to enslave, and the good witches could only rule justly in their own realms. Changing the balance of power between the Good Witches of the North and South, the East and West, by that part of himself that was great and good, by example that was one part fraud, and one part believer in his own tales, this good man brought peace to the land of Oz, such were the tales of Oz.

Karma and the Laws of Scaling

"Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man, that he didn't already have." - America

SIDENOTE: I did get the role of the Wizard of Oz in the local production. I now need a balloon in case I need to make a fast escape. Oh my. I am a confirmed humbug and typecast.

Technologies that scale do so because they are not meaningful. The more you have to control a technology, the less likely it is to scale because power is the hardest item to scale effectively. At least, directly. It is a good idea to understand the difference between alternating and direct current. Do you want to send one amp at a million volts or one volt at a million amps? It depends on how far you want to transmit and just how thick a wire you can afford. What you gain in direct effect, you lose in heat. By metaphor, if you want to fix a person, it may be better to use a lot of little jolts to change their mind because one big one could burn them and you and likely will destroy the connection. After that, you are powerless.

I was reading a post by someone tempted to use their blog in attack mode. I don't know any specifics, but it seems to be a way of saying, "You've been bad. I'm popular, my blog is popular, people will agree with me and if I badBlog your reputation, your value will decrease." It reminded me of the conversation I was having with my ten year old daughter last weekend. It seems she and some of her friends are having a problem because they all gossip about each other. She asked what she could do to fix it.

I told her to apologize if she had said anything bad or false, but otherwise to withdraw. I told her that what she was after was power over others, but that my experience is that if one tries for that, one creates a lot of karma and that karma IS power, but it alternates acts or it destroys in a single act. The more one does to others, the more karma one accrues, and because the act done can't be undone, the more karma one has, the less power one has. Do as done unto, but be sure the game has a reward one values. The act is the surest expression of a value, but so is the choice to act or not act. The recurions make her crazy but she got the point.

After many mistakes and much karma, the one thing I've discovered is the futility of attempting to fix others. One can alter their behavior of course, but that fixes little in the cognitive realm. If as the old humbug tells the tin man that "a heart is not judged by how well it loves but by how well it is loved by others", one has to ask if the act of fixing others ever gains one a scintilla of admiration, or just fear? Fear has its place, but again in my experience, fear is an irritant one seeks to do without. One might frighten another once, but can one keep it up?

In the long run, I find fear to be the least powerful motivation. I find excitement and anticipation of pleasure to be far more powerful. Even then, karma is neutral. I've seen drug dealers with very pleasant personalities control entire universities the way a teacher controls an entire classroom of preschoolers with candy. It is the means that do matter for control is the same however it is obtained. But fear will make the mammal retributive and when the authority is relaxed, when the back is turned, or when through age or lack of practice that authority relaxes that fear making habit, the results are always the same and retributive. I blogged this concept under "The Value of Values".

Life and death, these are reasons for the destructive act, and even then, such acts exact a very high price. Wars are never right even when necessary and as my Father taught me, if you must use the weapon, use it, don't show it, and then with speed and precision because the one against whom it is used may be capable of taking it away from you and then will most certainly use it on you. Fast feet are a better means unless the weapon is in your face. Even then, it is better to take it from them and use it as you will.

Otherwise, as I taught my daughter, as my Father taught me: a dog that will bring a bone will take a bone. If you don't want to feast on bones or be feasted on, go home and do something you enjoy in the privacy of your own backyard. Those that love you will seek you out; those that don't have no lasting value. Karma is like XML: it doesn't care. So you have to.

"I AM OZ! THE GREAT AND POWERFUL. WHO ARE YOU? WHO ARE YOU?"

See. It just doesn't work. Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man.

Do A John Galt

This article says it. Read down to the "What To Do" topic.

My phrase is, Do a John Galt. For those who have read "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand, you understand. Don't contribute to the madness and persuade every person of intelligent bearing that you know to also defer.

It's hard to run a country or a company without good ideas. What the right has shown is that they are masters of fear and divisive tactics, but have yet to offer a single good idea for improving the lot of the global society in which we live, or even the American society in which we work. They manage but they do not create. They harvest but they do not plant. They share everything but the profits and the power.

Better a small farm than a collective.

Pull the plugs and do whatever you can to make your life and the lives of those you truly care about better. Organize around your self-interests and come to understand what Rand called "the virtue of selfishness", that is, don't accept the guilt trap offered so often to recruit you to do work for those who do not have any interests beyond their own at heart. If they have a real interest in you, work with them. Do as you wish to be done unto on the first move, then as done unto for every move after that. It is the classic tit for tat strategy proven time and again to be the most effective way to survive and prosper.

They made the mess. Let them clean it up.

The Election: Step Away from The Platform

Am I disappointed? Yes. Surprised, no. As Norman Walsh said on the www-tag list and Elliotte Harold quotes him, "Stupid is not illegal." and I add, not unelectable. But I am comfortable that I supported the best man for the right reasons and when one does the right thing, there are no regrets.

This was the result I expected and blogged that in reply to Tim Bray's blog asking that we fire George Bush. The American electorate will only make big changes when they are comfortable and thanks to the last four years of intense mismanagement, they are very uncomfortable. So they stuck with the evil they know and avoided risking more discomfort even if it is a chance for improvement. Again, that is totally unsurprising.

As to the future, well, the people who have made the mess now have to clean up the mess. You see, elections are not about what is right, but about choosing who wins. Whoever wins has to make things right. Today, there are a lot of things that are not right in America.

Here in Alabama, an ammendment was proposed to remove a law from the Alabama constituion that preserves racism. Quoting the description and results from www.waaytv.com, a local TV station web site, "...this amendment will get rid of three elements from the [Alabama] 1901 constitution... a requirement for segregated schools, a requirement for a poll tax, and language that says publicly funded education is not a right of citizenship."

Results?

Statewide Amendment 2
No 690,247 50%
Yes 687,594 50%

You'd think we'd voted for that if for no other reason than to appear as if we were living in this century, but we failed to pass it. From a state that tried to outlaw diminished 5th intervals in music, this shouldn't surprise you or that we voted 63% for Bush. The sort of unthinking Alabamians do every day has now swept the nation. It also shouldn't surprise you that former Chief Justice Roy Moore, famous for his battle to keep the Ten Commandments on display in defiance of Federal court orders that forced his removal from office, is the main opponent of the Ammendment to remove these provisions. The Alabama Constitution can only be changed by Ammendments, is in desperate need of being replaced, but won't be because both sides fear the other will commit Draconian acts in the revision. They're both right, too.

The economy is sputtering, the death toll continues to climb in Iraq, health care is so expensive even companies cannot afford it so both our premiums and our contributions are going up even as we are laying off high skilled workforces and paying taxes to send their jobs overseas, the price of gas is at an all time high, we are losing our technical edge to the Pacific Rim, and most of our allies are ready to dismiss us from world affairs for having bungled the war on terrorism so badly. Note that while returning Bubba to office, they also soundly rejected gay marriage.

That's a lot of minds to have to change, fences to mend, and laws to pass or remove, or people to screw. The Republicans now have unlimited power with Bush in his second term. I've said before, it is a tough problem to be on the wrong side of history but that is where America is today, not because it doesn't have values, but because it cannot afford its values so it chooses instead to focus on taking more from those who have less to give to those who have more to do less for those who gave so much so that those who have more will keep what they have and get more.

It's a class war. Like it or not. Osama Bin Ladin made it plain that he intends to bankrupt the country, and the Republicans are busy helping him. It would be funny if it weren't so obviously true.

That's a heckuva a mess to clean up. I'm glad it's not my job. It is time for the Democrats to go fishin', ride a bike, take walks, and play with their kids and watch. Do get out of the way of the Republicans. They are going to be very busy. Given the last four years of majority rule in both houses and the executive branch without a single accomplishment beyond death, high prices and creating the most divided electorate in my lifetime, they will have to move very fast. And they don't know how.

That's a train wreck at full steam. Step away from the platform.

The Ten Small Truths of Web Developers

The Ten Small Truths: lessons learned from time spent trying to make three languages compile in one application with five namespaces.

1) It isn't that one standards organization is better than another. In fact, that is precisely the point. They aren't. It comes down to politics and those choices are simple: what's in it for me.

2) One would think we would search for the best design. We don't; we search for the best selling author because he or she will provide the easiest read.

3) If the customer doesn't know, the vendor doesn't have to care.

4) Do the Right Thing: the right thing means the MBAs make their numbers. Certainty is a warm spreadsheet.

5) The web is too much like Canada: it needs a strong leader to offset the difficulty of managing a weak government.

6) The web isn't the easiest platform; it is the hardest by a factor of five. We've gotten used to slow strangulation by the accretion of hacks. Worse is better and we actually believe that.

7) To know that a better universe existed, you have to be old enough to remember it. For the web, that means you have to be at least 50 years old. That means you are in a distinct minority among active developers. Minorities don't matter even if they are right. Socialism works only when minorities don't matter. See Truth 1.

8) If the press says it, it must be wrong. If anyone else says it, the press must be right.

9) A day in the library is a waste of time that could be better spent updating a wiki.

10) A day spent updating a wiki is a better day because now one's opinions about things one knows not nearly enough about will really matter.

So we have come to the place predicted by the Federalists, where the great unwashed masses have inflicted the maximum damage they can inflict and now want the damaged to repair them. Unfortunately, that is exactly what will happen.

sigh.. whimper... whine...

The Witch Of Endor

Most wretched of the dark angels imprisoned in Lucifer's realm were the crunchers. These creatures toiled ceaselessly creating numbered realms from Hell's finite infinity. Sightless dark eyes frozen open, they worked their leathery wings in Hell's heat making a droning dumb hum, a random chorus of numbers that began, rose, fell, and began again on the same note. Yet nonumber could alter that tone for soaring among the tonalities is an act of imagination, the light of creation. Without God, no dark angel bound by God's edict could image light by their own volition save one.

One dark angel was capable of imagination: Lucifer.

This tortured hum was the single sound of clarity in torment. It was a song of hate for the Creation within which his dark world had been conceived. His mind was its tonal center that could not vary by purpose or accident.

As each number was created, it was dispatched to dark angels that walked on Earth bound to the will of their Master and bound to the realm of mortal man by his hateful sound. The numbers shielded them from the light cast by the heavenly stars. Yetby these obscured points of light in the sky, they made their way to that place where his dark will would manifest through their demonic acts. This enabled them to find the imaginative mind of mankind and to cobble from it's mortality, a semblance of being in the world of light without ever being enlightened.

Mortals follow the imaginative light in herds. Where the stars showed the way, the humans would find happiness and long lives by their own choices. Yet, his insidious dark angels walk backwards among these herds, pretending to lead them by obscuring the stars that would otherwise illuminate their mortal choices.

Thus, they lead those that follow them into wars, famine, pestilence, and dissolution.

Thus, the will of Lucifer to destroy the world of light is done in certain places, at certain times, to certain humans by ensnaring their mortal purposes and leading them to Death.

While the stars looked on, the true witches who could always recognize these dark angels, were sorrowful for the helpless, hapless mortals but it was not their concern or within their power to save them because the will of the mortal to follow the dark angel was inviolate by God's law.

So it was when Saul, King of the Israelites came to the valley beyond Mount Tabor and the Hill of Moreh to the home of the Witch of Endor.

As he approached with his party, she rose above the cushion where she sat cross-legged, red hair wild and eyes glinting with the trial put at her door. This one who had slain all those mortals who falsely claimed the powers of her kind, who now came for answers knew not that he sought his own judge.

Behind her, a small golden haired girl sat also cross-legged but bobbing about as young girls will. "Mama," she said, "Why can't the mortals do magic?"

Her mother replied, "Without our powers and memories, the mortals do love and fear a God whose only evidence is their own feelings, and this is all the magic they possess. Their minds cannot roam among the stars, stand on the planets, push asteroids into each other, and then put them back again. What they know of the universe is memory mapped to events in time in one direction only. Over generations, they will make marks that will become words, and by these, attain some measure of time as it was, is and ever shall be. By this, they will lengthen the measure of years of their life, but death is their end and that is the limit of their knowing while they live. Such is the making of God."

The little girl's eyes grew large as the King's party came nearer. "But Mama, if they have even that much magic, why does the King not see the dark one riding beside him?"

The Witch raised her hands high above her and intoned, "They see the darkness of the sun and moon falling as they think. They feel the coldness in the air, but they do not trust the evidence of their feelings, so their knowledge of God is limited to their belief in themselves. They believe the evidence of their eyes if what they see raises their emotions and thus, the Lightbearer may overcome them in the darkness."

The girl blew her hair away from her eyes. "Then Mama, if their emotions are so unpracticed, so mortal, will they never know the darkness from the true light? Even if they have no powers, can they not know by these feelings, true love?"

Her Mother laughed, "Yes, my dear, they can love many times as a mortal loves, but if by true love you mean eternal love, they cannot know what love exists beyond a small number of years of life, for they have no certainty, and certainty of love is love's truest feature."

The Witch of Endor put her finger to her chin as if puzzled.

"They are eternally loved while they may not know that such love is possible. What such love means to ones who live a short time and then begin another life without memory is uncertain. It may be mercy. Do you not think that should they know such love, their lives would become ever sadder believing that they will lose this love when they lose themselves to death?"

"But God will love them even in death."

"Yes, but we can know with certainty what they can only feel. For mortals, feelings of love are the most uncertain of all."

With that, she smiled possessively at her beautful young daughter, then raised her hands casting a spell to hide their true nature from the party now close at hand.

The cowled king and his servant rode into grove of Endor. Walking up the rise, they saw only an old woman and her daughter tending a small garden beyond the cottage.

"Who is that comes to see me?" asked the hag.

"Strangers seeking knowledge, Mother." said the king, careful to keep his face beneath the cowl he wore so only his lips were revealed and his eyes gave no hint of the fear in his heart.

"Knowledge?", she laughed, "Do you mean victory?"

The king drew a long breath. "If God wills this." he said.

"Ask your question." she said dryly.

"I do not seek your counsel, Mother, but the counsel of my Teacher, now dead. I am told you have the power to summon the dead."

Her eyes flashed fury, "This is an unclean act. Who is it asks this of me?" and she pulled the cowl from his face.

"Saul. King of the Jews. Slayer of the hundred women of Moreh whom he called Witch. Have you come to slay me and my daughter? Would this act not convict us and would you suffer us to live having done your bidding, King?"

Saul twisted his lips nervously. This woman showed no trace of fear as she spoke, as if his power was none to hers. Saul had seen warriors speak with courage but none with the simple direct cold tone of her voice.

"I am only a warrior who wishes to see his old Master before I go to the valley of Megido to face the Philistine army. Summmon the spirit of Samuel the Prophet to this house that I may know God's will in the battle to come.

"Then victory is your desire, Saul. Is fear your dark companion?"

With her words, the servant on the left of Saul began to pulse and glow as if some energy within him grew stronger. Saul stood gaunt but did not move. He had seen God's power and this was not more fearsome, yet within him, he felt a terrible coldness. With that feeling came the sound of a low throbbing hum like millions of locusts beating their wings beyond the next hill, undulating with an ominous pulse of pure evil. Saul shielded his eyes from the awful figure of his servant transforming before him.

The Witch of Endor watched with amazement. She had cast no spell on this servant. She knew that this was the will of the Lord of Darkness joined in this servant, himself a creature of darkness, and the terror that now overcame Saul. From the twisted visage, the features of an old man emerged, eyes rolling first to one and then the other, then settling on the face of the terrified King.

She muttered low and sternly, "What face does the spectre wear, O Mighty King, is it one you know?"

"Yes," he said, "It is the familiar spirit of my teacher, Samuel the Prophet."

"Then" she spat, "Saul, your fate is sealed, for this spectre is of your making, not mine. God has given you power over men. God has given you his promise that as his will is done, so shall you profit by his will. Have you not seen all your enemies fall before you as you have worked his will for his purpose?"

Saul stood as he had when Samuel lived, tall and regal. He did not forget that he was the king of the Israelites, the protector by God ordained of the kingdom of the tribes.

"Yes Woman, I have seen and done all these things. Whathas been required of me that I have not done? I did slay the Amalektites and burned their city. I have even spared the beasts and fowl and fed my people with these and the Amalek grain."

As the deathly face of Samuel came closer to the face of the pale King, she asked her last question.

"God ordered that no sign of the Amalek remain in his land. Are these full bellies the sign of the Amalek?"

Saul replied, "These are gifts of Earth. That my men are well-fed, that their bellies do not grumble before battle, are these not also signs of the good of the kingdom, the good I have made by the will of God?"

The spectre of the old prophet, Samuel roared at Saul, "Who dares call forth the power of God for his own election?"

The king fell back as if struck by death itself. He felt the aloneness, the immortal cold, the earth that would soon cover his face in his funerary robe.

"What can be done?" he asked of the awful spirit.

The ghost replied without pity, "Only that which a man can do." and then vanished.

Saul swooned.

Instantly, the Witch and her daughter resumed their appearance, both beautiful and powerful. The girl approached the unconscious man and stroked his face. "He looks like a good man."

"He is," her Mother said as she levitated his prostrate figure onto his horse, the horse whinnying but unfazed by the Witch's magic, for horses know true witches and do not fear them.

"Will he die in battle?" the girl asked compassionately.

"He will," she replied as she sent the horse speeding toward the valley where many fires burned. "He has his answer and now he believes God has abandoned him. So his will to fight, his certainty of purpose have also left him."

"But the words he heard were not God's words?"

"Deceit is the way of the demon, my daughter, but for a man to be deceived, he must himself work the magic of belief, and because his will is his own, that magic has none but himself as its benefactor, for good or evil."

With that, the Witch wiped a tear from the girl's face. "Come," she said, and they faded away on the smoke that from the fires burning in the valley where the sounds of swords being sharpened on wheels made a low dull hum.