Last Night's Debate: The F Word

Looking at the CNN political ticker, the Farrakhan question caught fire as I thought it might.

In the South, if a minister espouses a position a person of conscience can’t abide, the person works with the church to get a new minister or goes to another church. Bifurcating churches are a reason the landscape and real estate market here is flooded with church buildings. This is the danger because those looking the Trinity pages now understand that it is a bigger deal than Louis F., that this is Obama's base and it is a separatist base. So now the moderate Democrats have more in common with McCain given an Obama v.s. McCain bid. Meanwhile, the separatists get pushed to the front of the debate and unless Obama clearly puts some distance between him and them really fast, at the end of this, we still get a Republican president and set back race relations in America fifty years.

On the other hand, the loser of last night's debate was Tim Russert. Mean little man.

For John Cowan: Which Words Matter?

So to be for Hillary is to be against the JPL, John? In other words, Obama is all inclusive and somehow her opponent is all divisive?

Ok. Here is the web page for Senator Obama's church in Illinois. Read it.

http://www.tucc.org/about.htm

I've seen this sort of stuff in the papers the guys who stand in suits on the corner sell here. Not new news. For people who don't live in heavily mixed neighborhoods, the words may be a bit of a surprise. So here are the typical positions taken by those who encounter this stuff.

Pro:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1058/is_11_124/ai_n19328537

Anti:

http://sweetness-light.com/archive/barack-obamas-church-ultra-left-and-afrocentric

The problem about the hard positions is it is tough to sort the words that matter from the words that don't, which means effectively, no one knows what Obama is about if that is his professed beliefs as a member of Trinity. It may be that that church is his political base and the means to get elected. Ok, politics as usual, but it means that only some words matter to him and his political base. Or it means his congregation has been duped by his membership. Not possible?

Then it means he believes all of that.

So John, which words matter?

Pro or anti, the message that church is espousing is political dynamite. This is what the Republicans will go after him with because they can get this message to their base without having to go through the Big Media outlets, and when it does, it will go through without traceability. That is how Obama will be Swift boated, except not with third party assertions, but with his own. Get ready for it.

It seems to me that for too many this is about some kind of Great Get Even. Some want to get even with the rich, some to get even with the Baby Boomers, some to get even with whoever. But that is exactly how the right elected Bush twice.

I won't vote for that. I vote for real change, a change of leadership that actually is inclusive and actually has a real plan to get our economy out of the dumps and our troops out of the desert. Not a cause, a movement, or a "people's liberation". If we need liberation, it is from those self-serving whining delusions that somehow a grand conspiracy got us in this trouble.

We did it to ourselves. Twice. What does it say if we do it a third time and call that liberation? Which words matter?

Bewitched: Dakini

In the alley by the third to last shadow of the mid-day stood the door to the Dakini, a house of idle chatter, conspiracy, and oh, magic of the most secret kind, the secrets of children who play in the mortal world while yet protected by that most ancient spell called innocence. Light shielded by shadow, in a room shaped by incantation, hidden among the busyness of the mortals, two girls played as little witches will, making up forever evers from recitations of dreams, practiced sighs and wrinkled noses.

Twin proprietors of the pleasures of the patrons of the Dakini, they practiced feminine arts of wit, and guile, satisfying their indulgent desires so sweet, no mortal man could resist them nor tell the dark from the light haired. Nor cared any to take one when with the other, or ever knew that both were satisfied. Even as the girls competed for the most high and delicious adventures of their immortal imaginations, they remained without question, cousins, devoted to each other’s hearts, each other’s needs, and each other’s failings. Neither would ever fall to sorcery or treachery in the mortal world while the other remained with her.

Mortals believe that magic is spells. Spells are a mask that bends the surface of an illusion inscribed by light on the magical eye. The face that names the names is hidden behind the veil of appearances summoned from the heart as signs tumbling in clusters of sparkling light. Calling these names, she can fly fearlessly among the dark stars that consume beings such as she. Their dark penetrating hums become the land marks by which a witches craft is discovered. Each act of magic inscribes a map of the light devouring spaces.

“He is waiting”, said the light-haired witch laconically with a resigned sigh as she counted the coins in the box for her turn. To the young man seated behind them, they were serving maids preparing for evening work. To each other, they were luminous goddesses preparing for an evening of amusement.

“Then let him”, her dark hair cousin coyly said, drawling in her deliberateness. “See how he taps his fingers on the case he carries. If he is the tiniest bit impatient to ask his question, let the answer be even less forthcoming.” Her face drew into the small curve, narrow at both ends but with fully pouted purple lips. “Anyway, he isn’t here to see me, now is he?”

Her laconic cousin saw the hint of jealousy betraying her disregard when a tiny spark escaped as if launched from the arched curve of her dark mascara. “Signs of attachments, or do the signs hold no currency for you, Samantha?”

“If signs were currency, Serena, you would be wealthier than your Mother,” the other replied with uplifted eyes smiling.

Bending over her as Samantha counted, she retorted “If your Mother’s currency were better clothed, you would be my Sister, Cousin.” the dark haired girl laughed with a pitched giggle.

“He is still waiting” she reminded.

The light haired serving girl glanced at her unmade face in the mirror hung on the wall behind the lid of the counting box as she closed it. Identical to her Cousin, her unadorned dress and face distinguished her as she moved among her customers. Polite and unassuming, she minded her magic with care and did not tease the men. They saw in her plainness any woman they desired but did not see the true face of Endora’s daughter.

Her eyes fixed on the boy sitting there. “Is magic enough?” she asked herself nervously moving her lip.

Serena’s dress clung like blood to every curve of her body, spread thickly in a few places, but thinly to the edges of these. Sam wore the plain robes of a servant girl hiding all that would cause a man’s eyes to linger, using her magic to keep their eyes fixed on her bewitching smile, crinkling nose and luminous green eyes, as if in her plainness, her intimate secret would be safe.

The young witch did not wish to be unattractive; she wished to attract only one. Like the boy drumming his fingers, she could count time until the moment of attraction, but until that one moment, she could play safely, instructing the willing and letting her Cousin steal the will of the others as she pleased. She knew that once she loved, she would always love. Her Cousin was perspicacious. That currency was her immortal heart.

Her fear silent, her heart needy, she asked his desire of the Dakini.

He raised his eyes and looked upon her true face.

A door opened and closed letting him see the immortal behind it for just a single thought. The light dissolved into a million suns plummeting toward him, blinding him, scattering him then swallowing the shards. He died wordlessly, his eyes still reflecting the luminous face he had seen. He vanished from the little girl’s magic.

As her Cousin laughed cruelly but without malice, she heard her Mother’s sad words whispered in her ear,

“To truly love a mortal is to lose one’s magic forever and ever again.”

Lessig, Obama and Hillary

I'm debating my web mate, David Petersen, about the announcement that Larry Lessig is considering a run for Congress. Inevitably, this becomes about the Presidential race. David says it is about The Movement, the People. Like Obama, he talks about a wave of change that will sweep over Washington and change government.

My problem is I've heard it all before. It feels good. It resonates in the media.

Does it work?

Populist appeals are very workable in campaigns. George Wallace was an example. George W. Bush is an example. An 'empower the people' speech is always thrilling, but it conveys the idea that they are not empowered already, that they do not participate already, that they are not heard.

We elected George W. Bush not once but twice.

The people did speak. They always do.

This is not about an election where one candidate speaks for the people and the other does not. It is not about populism or a movement. It is about governing the country well and for the best benefit of the people so governed. Yes, the will of the people to participate is strong and vital, but the needs of governance are the means and audacity to fight for what is right and to know exactly how to take that fight to Washington in a way that will succeed.

Populists elected Carter. Populists elected Wallace. Populists want to elect Obama, to send populist figures to Washington such as Lessig. Populism can elect a President.

But the buck stops at the Oval Office. It is a real job not a movement. It takes a skilled fighter and one who's heart is as strong as the head. It takes a lifetime of commitment. It takes leadership, but David, leaders are not reflectors. Ultimately we elect our leaders to make decisions that may not be popular. We do not elect them to reflect our will but to govern us and to provide by the power we entrust to them, the protection of the opportunities of liberty and justice.

I've seen what Hillary Clinton can do. I like it. For me, that's what this is about: the only choice I have is to pick the candidate I believe can do the best job and that I trust to do it.

I've seen how hard she fights for her family and her country. I've seen what a woman can do when everything she values is threatened. She prevails. She preserves. She advances.

I trust her.

... And she's sexier.

http://www.hillaryclinton.com/video/134.aspx

Epiphany

Baby mine oh
Sweetly smiling
In my arms so close tonight
Promise made to Eve in Eden
Cries so little
Cries so low

Reconcile my heart to sorrow
To the end of days
Wise men tell of kingdom's glory
Pierce your side for wine and water

Love,
My Love,
Your hand
Needing mine
At the dawn

Though God's heart in me is breaking
I will bear you on.

len bullard - 02/20/08

PS: The music for this is
HERE!

Once Again, The Geeks Are Clueless

The Republicans are making sure the money goes where it does them the most good. Smart. Unscrupulous but smart.

The Democrats are about to put John McCain in the White House. What no pundit thought possible, once again, we will do for the sake of spiting ourselves. The harsh bit is if one takes race off the table as every good liberal should, Obama is just a freshman Senator without any credentials beyond presentability. Given that, if we want to make some kind of statement, the big change would be gender. It appears that America is more biased about gender and fearful of women in charge.

The $40 million of our money spent by the Republicans to destroy the Clintons worked, and now for their effort, we will give them another four years, or we will elect another Jimmy Carter who while admirable, was too inexperienced to undo the mess left by Nixon. After that, we get another 12 years of Republicans just as we did with Reagan/Bush. You have to admit, it is a brilliant strategy. The Democrats take the fall for Bush Jr's criminal rule, and the same party that made that possible get another decade to loot.

John Cleese was right. The Queen needs to revoke our independence except for "Kansas which she does not fancy." At least the Brits understood that Ironpants Maggie was no threat and had the nescessaries to govern.

Between The Anvil and The Hammer

There is controversy about Raph Koster's keynote suggesting that virtual worlds and games are irrelevant to a world that has it's Darfurs. Some see this as a trivialization of the game worlds; others, a Panglossian attempt to recruit game devs into social causes.

Yes, media can change people not because it changes the way they think but because it can change what they think about and the act of thinking can change the way they think. D'oh.

A series like The Prisoner can change what we think about and did. It is great art and remains relevant or is possibly more relevant. If one sees games in this view, then games that give more to think about are positive.

Virtual worlds are different. They don't tend to have the same 'god like' Number 2 running the show and defeating every attempt to escape, though it is to be noted that through iron-will and persistence, Number 2 did break the will of his captors.

But these are still just works of art. Reality changes in much more complex and difficult to control ways. Did the Prisoner cause the kids to go to the streets in 1968 to stop the war? Some, likely yes. Did they stop the war? No. That happened when the cost began to bankrupt the economy, there was no political advantage, and it was clear no win possible except for the locals. Like Number Six, iron will and discipline broke absolute power.

So is there some lesson virtual worlds and games should teach with respect to Darfur? Maybe. If you want to create worlds that teach lessons, they can certainly do that.

Or perhaps Darfur will be another example to the West like Vietnam that absolute power simply will not change hearts and minds. It can aid them when they are ready to change but otherwise, human suffering like human evolution is controlled by humans who ARE the emergent controls.

I see the campaigns of the left and well-intentioned as hollow when it comes to acts. It takes incredible experience and planning to create real change. It is not enough to say, "We Can"; we have to say "We Can Do THIS" and this must be doable. Otherwise, as Orwell is quoted, the anvil breaks the hammer, and the follow on is that whatever was between the anvil and the hammer at that point is left undone.

Frustratingly sad but so. I am in sympathy with Raph because we can lose consciousness of what is to be done and what is doable by retreating into fantasy worlds. I agree with Prokofy Neva we can lose it just as easily while shopping for groceries. I disagree that art of any kind is the means, just a reflector. In this is the heart of the problem of our media society: leaders should not be simply reflectors. Hope is a condition, not a goal. Actions without a goal are as dangerous as words without a cause.

If you want to make a change, put $25 into an organization feeding the refugees. This will not solve the problem. It will keep someone alive long enough to make a plan and maybe act on that. Little acts can lead to great victories if they follow the human instead of directing them.

Dark Stars and Standards

With all of the discussion on XML-Dev initiated by Simon St Laurent about the ten year aniversary of XML and the question, is it time for a new review, I have an odd thought given we are comparing the last experience with SGML's struggles and the ease with which XML was sold.

Is there a dark star phase for technologies and ideas? I tend to think of SGML as being sold to publishers and industries whereas XML was sold to programmers. Do standards or technologies endure a phase where the amount of combative energy among the users of different types is such that there is insufficient momentum for it to collapse and fuse until a primary group emerges or is identified which can instantly coalesce and create the required amount of cooling for the collapse?

What are the standards evolution analogs of neutrinos, photons, and electrons?

Humans are the emergent controls of their own evolution. Their intelligence is the fuel and until the coalescence, they cannot shine. The question is, are our conflicts, our resistance to our commonality, our desperate clutching of our self-identity, the dark matter?

It's a fun model.

It IS About Race

I'm being asked about my voting preferences in the upcoming elections. First, I'm a Democrat. Readers of my blog know that and know my positions on the War, Bubba Bush, Rove the MasterBaiter, and so on. No mysteries there.

1. If it comes down to McCain vs Clinton: I vote for Clinton. I've had enough of the Republicans. Although I respect John McCain, his age and his party work against him.

2. If it comesdown to Obama vs McCain: I vote for McCain. Obama is slick but hollow. A good speechmaker, he may be just a bit too much like John Kennedy who was also a good speech maker but shallow in foreign affairs and up to his hips in scandals which fortunately for him, weren't revealed until after he was assasinated and deified.

Is it about race?

We're told we can't ask that question. The fact that we are told that means it is about race. We were told we couldn't ask questions about the war too because we'd be unpatriotic. When a topic goes off limit, it is worth talking about. I don't hold race against Obama personally. I hold the notion it isn't worthy of discussion against his supporters. I have the very fresh memory of the announcing of the results of the OJ Simpson verdict when the black community stood up and cheered for a man who had cut the head off his wife and murdered a young boy in cold blood. I can't get over it or past it. Now I see Oprah talking about a 'new day for our people' and I have to wonder if I am in the demographic. If I have to wonder, it is about race. Otherwise, why vote for someone who doesn't even have enough experience to know a slum lord from a land lord.

From then until now, I've had all I can stand of tribal drum beating from the far right wing nuts of the Republican Baiting Party to the Al Sharpton's who can't seem to understand that as long as race is an excuse, nothing is inexcusable. Now we can add the Millenials with their age bigotry to this camp who believe it is time for them to take over the country. When you can pay for it, you can have it, kids.

I don't think this country needs a Great Get-Even and that may be what we get with Obama. That WOULD be the politics of the past.

No, what we need is a good hard nosed executive. There is work to be done and I've had enough of visionaries and other feel good fairies. I want to know how the next President will manage my money and the resources I want to leave to my children.

Epiphany and Cecile

Here are some new instrumentals for you. These are reflective, meditative, lush... ah heck... ear candy.

Why Epiphany? Why not?
Why Cecile? Fred didn't fit.

Both of these are part of the new Virtual Reality world being built for the University of Western Australia - Perth. I can't wait to see the completed work.

Epiphany
Cecile

Enjoy!

Hanging On The Santa Cross

There is a strange cultural phenomenon here in the South. When a person dies in an auto accident, the family or friends of the victim will put a wooden cross memorial at the site of the incident. These crosses dot the Alabama highways and are a accepted as an expression of public personal grief even as they ugly up the roadsides.

This year I saw one that filled me with dark fascination. Someone decorated the wooden monument with a holly bough and a Santa hat. Imagine that: a Santa Cross.

I've been interviewing people for jobs at our company. This is new for me. I didn't expect to become the manager of product development eight months after accepting the job, but one who takes chances the way I have in my career doesn't always predict the path ahead. I know why I left but that doesn't mean I had a good plan if any. Uncertainty can be pleasant or unpleasant. I manage it. I enjoy it. Risk is acceptable regardless of what I have to lose because when I manage it, there is a thrill to that. No matter how nasty people or circumstances are, one can make do and better themselves.

Something I notice is just how dissatisfied some are with their current employer, yet how reticent they are to take a new job when offered until they get the opinions of the very people they are leaving if they take a new job. Perhaps we want approval or applause or maybe we just don't have enough confidence to believe we can control the circumstances wherever we land. I understand that.

Yet I don't understand when someone is so uncertain that they will endure another season in a freezing hell over taking a chance that they might have to manage uncertainty. We can talk about having to take care of our families, our responsibilities, but eventually we have to take care of business, we have to manage uncertainty.

Sitting here watching a miles long flight of birds flying Southeast, content in the cold, and otherwise looking for grain, maybe that is the way most people manage the winters of discomfort and discontent.

Others put up a Santa Cross.

I understand both. I just don't want to hang on one and wait for the wind to turn warm again. Better to fly.

Is Being Online Rude?

Tim provides his opinion about audiences being online during presentations as conferences. Generally, if a speaker is that boring, I find another presentation. Most good conferences are running multiple tracks so I've usually marked up the schedule for this occasion. The debate is 'is such behavior rude?' At a concert or pretty much any entertainment venue that isn't *classical* or "dryad jazz*, the answer is no. On the other hand, a power amplifier is a marvelous antidote.

When I observed my children texting at the family Christmas function, I took their cellphones away from them. As I said, "That's rude." A conference might be different. Maybe not.

1. You paid to be there. It's your time or the time of your employer. You may have an issue with your employer if you are texting with your fav(n) while your competitor is presenting.



2. The speaker paid to be there. They take risks doing that and one of them is they may fail to hold the interest of the audience. If the speaker is paid to be there, they already have the money.

It is pretty easy to rouse an audience from somnambulance. Point the microphone into the monitor. Some will consider that rude and will leave to type elsewhere. Those that stay are interested. Think of it as culling by holding the wand of power. Rudeness like violence begets more of the same but in the moment, they don't have a power amplifier and you do. They have a wireless connection. They are welcome to IRC their displeasure from another room and surely will. That's fine.

Then there is the one that is most irksome: cellphones in business meetings. Do you tolerate that? If someone is required and does that, count the number of people in the meeting and multiply by their average salaries for the time you are waiting? Was that cellphone call as important as the time at the time? Does your company still have confidential meetings and allow people to bring their cellphones and Blackberries into the meeting? Remember, those are also recording devices. You might want to have a chat with your company security person if you do.

Reflexivity is the nature of communicative acts. Only when they are tolerant, considerate and compassionate can they be considered 'civilized' acts. If this is 'over' it might be a good idea to turn up the power amps, put on some earplugs, and make sure that the force is felt. Then at the very least, boredom ends quickly.

Uncivilized behavior follows it out the door. What is left has value however small.

Same Song New Recording

Here is the final recording of

My Son's Time To Go.

It took some time to winnow this down in the 'less is more' tradition of arranging acoustic songs.

The sadness of wars is we keeping having them.

*********************************************************************

For the music geeks:

G Harmonica, Godin nylon string, Roland 1080 synth, electric bass, Rickenbacher 12 string, voice.

The processed sound effects are nylon string guitar with Doppler effects. The harpsichord is the 12 string electric resampled up an octave (an old hippie songwriter trick).

La Vie en Rose

La Vie en Rose is a recent French film depicting the life of Edith Piaf. Piaf is a name I knew but I knew nothing of the details of her life. The title song is a recognizable melody, but this tells me how short even international fame is once a singer dies. Yet...

For those as little cultured as I am, she was a French singer of the 1930s to the very early 1960s. It is a tragic, sad film with very few light moments and even those always in the context of her willful need to be both loved and independent. The music is extraordinarily beautiful, the acting is world class and the story is not one to be forgotten easily.

I recommend the film for a rainy winter day. There are some YouTube shorts of the real Edith Piaf singing her signature songs. I recommend these highly. Of course, now I will be out looking for Piaf's records.

I am always amazed at the haunting quality of the right song sung by the right voice supported by the right heart in the context of a tragic life. The film director says he intended to portray the life of the artist. He succeeded. Bon.

Jack and the Magic Beans

This weekend was the occasion for the local church production of Jack and The Magic Beans. They cast all kids in these and I get the plum task for writing and recording songs for the show.

The music is here.

http://home.hiwaay.net/~cbullard/mp3/FeeFiFoFum.mp3
http://home.hiwaay.net/~cbullard/mp3/MooBooBouree.mp3
http://home.hiwaay.net/~cbullard/mp3/FeeFiFoFumInstrumental.mp3
http://home.hiwaay.net/~cbullard/mp3/jack.mp3

It was great fun to see the little heads bobbing and twisting to the macarena beat of FeeFiFoFum. The kids in the cast made up a dance for it. Love it!!!

For the gearHeads:

1. Software: Adobe Audition and Guitar Pro
2. Axes: Takamine Six-string acoustic, Godin LGA electric six string, Rickenbacker 12 string electric, Kentucky Mandolin, Roland JV1040
3. Voices: Len Bullard
4. Acoustic Bass: Mark Huff

The Cloister and The Fence Jumper

Bob Sutor asks an interesting question about social networks becoming the banks of our personal information. Haren asks if open standards for exchanging social network information will improve that market.

Would that it were that easy, Haren. Let me compare this to the current faux standards initiatives in virtual worlds. The question is

1. The import/export of object serializations still needs a common object model if the behavior of the system is important. One can import/export geometry assets fairly well minus the color pallette (notoriously variant). After that, scripts are the challenge. VRML is the most ubiquitous import/export format for web use with Collada coming up fast. X3D has a better model but isn't as widely deployed.

2. The next issue is the runtime. These formats are usually not reversible, or what we once called 'lobster traps'. The lobster goes forward but can't come back without shedding a limb, sometimes called 'lossy'. XML doesn't protect a data asset from this. Being without semantics, it can't. The XMLers have long claimed XML is a good runtime format, but most of us are document wonks, not real-time 3D systems designers. Given the size of files required to create a seamlessly navigable virtual planet, verbosity matters. A lot. Animators won’t accept slower frame rates to enable open human-readable formats these days. The pioneering days of VRML gave way to the Second Life city-states where ‘stickyness’ is the analog to the Hotel California: check in but never leave.

In other words, highly competitive markets “forge, f**K, hide and deal” to obtain locks on their customers. The Haight experience repeats endlessly in the Valley: it starts off starry-eyed but pretty soon everyone is focused on the bottom line.

So there are two problems: having a common model to share that is operationally compatible, and the will to share.

Social networks have a slightly more dismal story I'm told. Not much attention has been paid here for the same reason the virtual world owners aren't raging for common interchange. Being entertainment venues or light social interaction venues, the idea is to keep eyeballs from wandering, so like a possessive mistress, they tend to guard the secrets of their attractions.

That might be seen as an indicator of the immaturity of the market. Small firms acting small. As larger companies become involved, they tend toward the common data models because they are more interested in increasing the size of the market itself. Note for example Google created KML for its 3D assets and it was implemented in the X3D/VRML editors such as Media Machines Flux. That is a win for the authors because they can move assets independently among the vendor worlds. This would be the result for the social networks; the users can move information assets. The problem is finding some net advantage for the network owners.

A change might be if more of these were P2P and the local machine could be used to protect the privacy where necessary. People would have to be responsible for it and some would rather pay someone else to do that. That was what I was saying in the first post. If a person could provide all of that information to one trusted/paid-to-be-litigable source, then the ability of that source to protect and manage the private information would be their selling point. Think of it as the Swiss Bank model for personal information. That vendor could provide a card or other means which a user then gives to say their doctor or other transaction partner rather than having each partner own a copy of the personal information. That was the problem of the SSN: it gets too widely distributed-by-value rather than reference; so its security is minimized yet it unlocks an incredible amount of personal information.

It is an interesting conundrum: a system designed to distribute (the web) results in the concentration of stored information to offset the dangers of the very characteristic it was designed to enhance.

Then there is the danger of sharing. It isn’t simply a matter of enabling it. If that were so, adultery would be a very well supported human behavior instead of one that while ubiquitous, is generally punishable sometimes by law but most often by social ruin. Just because something is popular to do doesn’t mean it is safe to do, yet Silly Valley investors and developers act as if every thing they sell has a social imperative.

"The web is going to be a much more immersive, a much more multi-dimensional environment," said John Doerr, one of the founding board members at Google and a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, which invests heavily in the tech sector.

Mr Doerr's presentation touched on a range of areas that would be affected by the web, in particular green technologies and the energy sector, as well as disease therapy, and he gave stark warning to any firm that was not willing to embrace emerging trends. "In any real revolution there are winners and losers. The internet wasn't some kind of 'kum ba ya' thing," he said.

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article2726190.ece

Doerr is funny if not ironic. His statement comes down to "Buy from us or perish." Actually, the web was a kumbaya thing. When the scout master began to molest the scouts, things changed.

Revolutionary changes don't often come from where the mass is looking. The status quo resists change and nature conspires against intelligence. Revolutionary comes from where few are looking and that few are struggling for their lives in some cause shared quietly if reluctantly by many. That is why it is called ‘revolutionary’.

The first revolution of the Internet is sharing yet sharing has created many problems with identity theft and other social illnesses. The rise of a ‘smarter’ web may be the creation of a cleverer burglar. The problem is protection, not sharing.

The next web is not an open web, but a cloistered one of many walled gardens where the contract is not how widely shared information is, but how safe and protected it is. The rise of the city-state was the rise of a gated community in the beginning. When what goes on inside the gates has enough value, the walls get higher and the guards become more professional.

In a world of competitive dog shows, breeders don't tolerate fence jumpers kindly.

Rock A Bye Baby

Force vs culture: force loses. It is a rock fighting water. The rock loses every time over time but it takes time. Even with a large rock, enough small streams crossing will erode it to dust.

We seem to be approaching such a time in the evolution of the global Internet and a more massive shakeup in the power structures of our companies and governments. Where companies and individuals talked open standards and open systems, we seem to be witnessing attempts to close it on several fronts particularly given the opportunity to use the emerging markets for virtual worlds to gain keiretsu locks on the technologies. A considerable numbers of streams seem to be crossing.

Single Language Unification

There is an emerging effort on the surface from several domains to propagate the idea of single language unification. After all, that is what HTML is, right?

This is the wrong approach for many reasons. It creates an unhealthy ecosystem. Even where there is one language for a period of time, requirements for it diverge sufficiently to cause either so many variants that they may as well have separate titles or to eliminate areas of application that look similar on the surface but are quite different in the domain in which they operate (eg, design time vs runtime datasets). Generic markup succeeded precisely because it is the antithesis of the single language ecosystem. Think of DNA and you see how the engines of living systems actually work in cooperation or competition with the host environments.

The single language approach has a very long and public history of failures. One only has to look. XML succeeds precisely by NOT being a single language approach. SGML stalled because of having too many variations in the approach to a syntax unified system. HTML bifurcates because of too many necessary variations in the object frameworks that support it and the plethora of scripting languages that animate it.

This single language meme is stacking up to be one of the Big Idea discussions in the next year given the numbers of ostensibly separated emergence points I am seeing across various blogs and forums. Taken to extremes, it is a very bad idea. Not considered in terms of the technical reasons it is advanced, it is a dangerous idea to ignore. Not understanding that some of the motivations at some of the emergence points are not technical in nature makes it insidious.

Standards Or Not

While the discussions of social networking make for a fascinating coffee table book collection of musings, the elephant in the room is standards for interop.

1. Platform unification: pick a winner among the various competing gardeners. That's a non-starter for obvious reasons.

2. Keiretsu unification: a consortium of non-standard technologies are pulled together to create a network of interlocked walled gardens. Christian Renaud might want to use a different analogy than speciation. Look at the emergence of cities and city states. This one succeeds for some time but it is the Roman Empire approach to civilization. It has the advantages of money AS a force for integration but it creates a short lifecycle for the content. 3D content minus RADs is very expensive. Caveat emptor.

3. The Language IS the Platform. This approach has historically produced the healthiest ecosystem of standards. Languages are much more like living entities in their development cycles if you want to use speciation metaphors. The lifecycle advantages for the authors and owners of content are far greater as they force system vendors to compete for talent by offering better rendering and other services. The service bundle becomes the product for host vendors. In the X3D/VRML history, multiple vendors vied and died. Had it not been for the language basis, the content would have died with them. That is the ultimate outcome of building walled gardens in the desert. Archaeologists are the inheritors.

On the other hand, The Single Language Theory postulates that multiple languages create fractures with the most popular meme being the Tower of Babel myth interpreted as "God's vengeance on audacity". The counter interpretation is that it was God punishing one King who wished to become the single intercessor and that multiple languages enabled all to pray with their own expression.

The second analogy more nearly fits the situation we encounter with 3D standards. The problem is as Watte points out at Forterra, performance. This is the place to start thinking about 3D interoperability: runtime languages with high performance versus design time languages (eg, X3D, Collada) with desirable lifecycle characteristics.

That is the convergence we have to solve. The rest is marketing politics.

Games In the Workplace

This is a profoundly BAD idea. Many years ago the founder of Fairchild tried posting salaries as an exercise in motivating employees. It was the same reasoning: transparency leads to better performance. According to the stories, it almost destroyed the corporation as the inside games quickly became more important than external business. I’ve seen similar problems with so-called peer reviewing systems that then submit names to a committee to pick the so-called ‘high pot’ performers. Who ever dreamed that one up was certainly high on something. The key clique insiders began to game the system immediately. The results were very predictable.

This is folly because it assumes people are rational and given good information will act to improve the situation for themselves and others. The AI guys know the fallacy of rationality is bogus. The humans will take many kinds of acts given such rating systems but most of them are destructive. There are reasons for privacy laws and for restricting the flow of certain kinds of information. Transparency in proximity means closing the door to the bedroom first.

China and The Rest of the World

With cheap labor and dirty manufacturing coupled to the infinite desire of the West for More Stuff, the Chinese have amassed a substantial cash advantage. It is a bit like Google or Microsoft in the software market. Keep a lock on a market long enough and eventually you hold all the cash and most of the high cards in the deck. So goes the pace of globalization. IBM surrendered to China and other companies are kowtowing as fast as they can send salesman.

This is normal and predictable. The US dollar is in the toilet for awhile, the Chinese are holding the notes, and just as we had to do in the late 70s and 80s to dig our way out of the oil debt and the falling dollar post-Viet Nam, we have to do some major kowtowing to rebuild from our latest misadventures. Again, this is predictable as sunrise.

Markets seek levels like water seeks low ground or metal anneals when heated. The problem of annealing processes is sub-optimum minima that have to be socked really hard to restart the flow. One wonders where the thump will come from but those poisoning events will rattle something. What is truly entertaining is how strange the bedfellows become and how former bad guys turn out to be the good guys at the denouement.

It isn’t that the mammals aren’t rational. It is the shocks it takes to get them to use it. They claim the Chinese curse is ‘may you live in interesting times’. I think the right word for what is happening is ‘insidious’ because it is otherwise, deadly boring. What was that old quote about “lulling them to sleep”?

Rock a bye baby, indeed.

Why William Gibson Hates Futurists

Gibson says he doesn't like futurists. He goes on to talk about Osama and Alabama. It makes for the kind of reading that other self-absorbed and pathologically cynical writers enjoy: an affirmation of the emptiness of their work.

As one might suspect, Gibson knows as much about Alabama as he knows about virtual reality: technically nothing.

A vivid imagination is only one part of predicting the future. The other part is the chops to make a prediction come true. The rest is timing. Gibson writes pulp science fantasy. Jules Verne dreamed of rockets to the moon, but he fired them out of cannons, something even the scientists of his day knew was bad engineering.

So here I am back in the office a half mile from an engine laying on its side that once took man to the moon and five miles from the test stands where it was first fired.

I just came from the services of the man who's invention was the coating of the heat shields that saved the life of every American crew returning from space until the space shuttle flew. I sang and then watched his daughter, a prima ballerina now retired and teaching in New York dance for her mother and father's friends, a woman who would bring people such as Dave Brubeck to his home. This I watched in the rebuilt ruin of a tavern on a mountain not half a mile from where Alan Ginburg taught me the blues forty miles from where W.C. Handy, the father of the blues was born, and not much further, where Helen Keller first saw the world through the water falling on her hands.

As I looked through the rain cloud that settled around the park, I realized I am glad for the ignorance of William Gibson and those like him who know so little about my home but wish to use it as their frame for ignorant thought. It is thoughts like theirs that keep a tidy mist around my home keeping others like them from coming here as if it were Brigadoon bewitched. I wish them well and that life and liberty will keep them far from here where giants lived, where the thunder of their engines shook my house and broke my Mother's picture frames.

I live in a place both quiet and beautiful and filled with the gentle men and women who looked at the stars and in them drew a line straight to future while the William Gibson's of their day did not believe and could not go. Please stay in Vancouver, Bill. It is the right place for you. I will stay in Alabama. It is the right place for me.

MooBooBouree: You Can Teach A Cow To Tap

Here is the children's song I was asked to write.

http://home.hiwaay.net/~cbullard/mp3/MooBooBouree.mp3

I can't believe I'm doing this, but hey, so did Garcia and Grisman, so it must be ok.

Thanks to my choirmate, Mark Huff, for playing standup bass!

Blue Moo Bouree (You Can Teach A Cow To Tap)

Blue Moo Bouree (You Can Teach A Cow To Tap)
c len bullard - sept 17 2007

You can dress her in a skirt
You can rouge her up good
She can even wear a mighty fine hat
But if you try to make her dance
She's got two left feet
And there's nothing she can do about that
You might get her on the stage
But she won't say much
When she's chewing on her cud she can't rap
There's many fine things that you can't do
But you can teach a cow to tap.

If she sways too far she might fall down
On the fence or the chicken or the dog
If you her leave outside when the sun goes down
She'll get lost wandering round in the fog
There's a trail to the pond and a trail to the barn
All she needs is a compass and a map
Well there's just some things a cow can't do
But you can teach a cow to tap.

Instrumental:

Show 'em, Prissy!

You can show her to the feed
She'll give you what you need
Grade chuck roast, burger or broil.
She's content to be beef
She's content to be boots
Where there's grass n'er a cow was ever spoiled
But she can't do a waltz
Play a fiddle or a flute
As a singer she'll be coming up flat
As an entertainer goes, she's a pretty dull show
But you can teach a cow to tap.

Look at that.. Blue Moo Bouree!