Monday, November 28, 2005

3 Mile Run: Neighborhood

This old body is feeling the increase of activity after 2 months of little exercise beyond the physical therapy for the left ankle. I am glad to be out there doing it. I am planning to run 4 days this week with 2 days at the gym. Close to my original schedule, albeit, with fewer miles for the week. I will be running a 5K this weekend. I do have jaw surgery coming up to correct my bite, that will slow me down again for a week or two. I will be ready for Cooper River in April as usual, I believe.

Data
:

Distance: 3 Miles
Time: 31:32
Heart Rate: 160
Pace: 10:31
Weather: Clear skies, 60 degrees.

Saturday, November 26, 2005

3 Mile Run: Neighborhood

Well, I am getting back to my normal workout schedule. I am going to the gym twice a week for muscle works. Of course, I am getting the usual set of questions after laying off for awhile, "where have you been?" But, all are wishing me well. The running is going fine but, I can still feel something is different with the left heel and ankle. But, it doesn't feel like weakness or pain. I think it may be the brace. But, it sure does feel good to be back at it.

Data:

Distance: 3 Miles
Time: 30:43
Heart Rate: 167
Pace: 10:14
Weather: Clear skies, 57 degrees.

Thursday, November 24, 2005

Podcast Update

  • Vernor Vinge talked about Technical Singularity. I got interested in this topic after reading an article in Wired. I thought that I saw references to hackers and terrorists as additional limitations on our ability to make progress towards something like the singularity to which Vernor alludes. But, I can't find it. Not worth the trouble. Vernor delivered a very interesting presentation. His ideas are great fodder for science fiction writers and for general contemplation. Vernor introduces some interesting ideas related to this singularity. So, what is singularity? I found this definition on Wikipedia:

    technological singularity (also referred to as just "the Singularity") is a predicted future event when technological progress and societal change accelerate due to the advent of superhuman intelligence, changing our environment beyond the ability of pre-Singularity humans to comprehend or reliably predict.

    Vernor adds concepts like a soft and hard take-off. A soft take-off refers to the idea that we gradually and relatively incrementally reach singularity. A hard take-off refers to the idea that it emerges as more or less a surprise maybe even without notice. As we continue to add chips to all kinds of things in our environment, what happens when the devices get ornery. Hum. The more we lean on computers for management of basic features of our social and general environment, the easier it is to imagine machines coordinating an automatic expansion of capabilities that just escapes us.

    Great presentation. The whole topic has me thinking about basic dichotomies like good-and-evil. In this context, I am treating the singularity as "good" which, of course, is not a given. Thus, the association with hackers and terrorists in my mind is related to the notion that worms, Trojan horses, viruses and those that introduce them distract from our ability to keep growing our abilities on exponential scales as we have to spend so much resources on defense. Terrorism and other social ills provide the same controlling impact on society. Of course, the troubling thought is that if singularity were to take place which side of the dichotomy would benefit? What if it just exacerbates the battle?
  • Paul Le Dieu talks about how the BBC is participating in the digitization of more and more information. Further, that the BBC is participating in making this content available for those that wish to remix and redistribute under a creative commons license (limited to the UK). Very interesting presentation.
  • Paul Graham talks about blogging and open source and how it compares to more traditional IT work environments. He hits the nail on the head so many times and does so with a nice peppering of humor. I laughed out loud so many times listening to this. Fortunately for me, I work for an organization that gets it. I don't trudge into a endless sea of cubicles each day and experience some of the humorous (well, maybe not really funny) events described by Paul so well. For example, to describe the motivation for making people go to work during certain hours he says "if you can't make people work, at least, you can prevent them from having fun". I do visit from time-to-time. In this case, my visits are packed with face-to-face meetings that are not just contrived or distracting but about making connections.
    One of the less obvious things Paul points out is that despite the traditional media's pointing out that the average blog contains content of average or worse content, they miss that what they will compete is against isn't the average blog. They will compete against the best blogs. This, of course, is comparable to Microsoft's position with open source. Paul's comments are on target, iconoclastic and highly recommended listening.

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

3 Mile Run: Neighborhood

I put in another good run. Yeppee! All seems to be working OK. I have finished physical therapy and I am embarking on picking up my normal workout schedule. It feels good to be back, but I am tired.

Data:

Distance: 3 Miles
Time: 30:57
Heart Rate: 169
Pace: 10:19
Weather: Partly cloudy, 60 degrees.

Sunday, November 20, 2005

3 Mile Run: Neighborhood

I know it is a shock! First run since the injury on September 18th. I have been in physical therapy and was cleared by the podiatrist. I was slow and stiff, but it was great to be back out there. My plan is to train hard and steady for Cooper River Bridge Run in April.

Data:

Distance: 3 Miles
Time: 32:03
Heart Rate: 168
Pace: 10:40
Weather: Partly cloudy, 61 degrees.

Monday, November 14, 2005

Podcast Update

  • Opening Move with Scott Mace
    • Julie Hanna Farris talks about Scalix which offers a messaging application that presents an Outlook like interface via a browser. Interesting comments about the penetration of open source into commercial enterprises. She clearly believes that the two will continue to play well together. For her company, they open sourced a limited, but rich set of features in Scalix Community Edition. In fact, it sounds like they open sourced all but those that are most clearly directed towards more enterprise use (e.g., group scheduling). She also made it clear that their target is to provide a messaging system for Linux. They are not targeting Windows. Interesting presentation.
    • Brian Capouch talks about the open source project, Asterisk. This open source project provides PBX functionality for VoIP. Brian made it clear that the main version of Asterisk is best understood by those with a background in IT and Telephony. However, he also indicated that the home distribution is easy to install and essentially gets you setup via answers to easy to understand questions. I know little about telephony. So, I imagine I would find the full edition of Asterisk intimidating. Brian mentioned several uses of Asterisk that were quite interesting. For example, he mentioned once case where an application used Asterisk and bluetooth to ring the room in which a person was physically located. Good presentation.
  • Larry's World
    • Larry talked with Craig Newmark of Craig's List. Given the use of Craig's List during hurricane Katrina, I was very curious to hear this presentation. I must the most impressive part for me was the insight I gained into the character of Craig. Maintaining a simple site where control remains with the users, bypassing offers for huge sums of cash to maintain a work he finds important, both speak well for Craig. Very interesting.
    • Larry talked with Jakob Nielsen a usability expert. This lively and entertaining presentation features Jakob sharing some of the no-no's we see and should avoid as we build web applications (or applications in general for that matter). It is how the user is going to use the site, not what it looks like that matters. Good listening.
  • Rajesh Jain, Professor of Information & Computer Sciences, UC, Irvine, talks about Experiential Computing. Every time I listen to Rajesh I gain more appreciation for his insightful and informed viewpoint on where computer science is taking us. This excellent presentation find Rajesh reminding us that we are on the edge of escaping some of our historical baggage (like viewing everything on the web as a document) into a world where our experiences are captured in multiple ways and linked via the web and other technologies to allows to revisit and share that experience. Cool presentation.
  • Vermor Vinge talks about Singularity.
  • The Gilmor Gang talks about the current range of browsers standards for the web (blessed and de facto). This very interesting presentation brings together a group of knowledgeable folks to talk about the browsers and the tagged languages to which the appeal. They talked about the W3C blessed standards and the standards that appear in the real world. XForms, SVG, and DOM level 0 and level 1 make the list of topics discussed. With the apparent ongoing onslaught of Firefox use growth, this presentation is still timely and interesting. I highly recommend this presentation.
  • Tara Lemmey talks about National Security in the Information Age. This brief, but very informative presentation, highlights how the automation of information between and within agencies needs to meet certain usability requirements that many of us probably don't think about much. For example, some FBI agents have a strong preference for NOT having to type in information. Then, one has to determine how to manage annotations and viewability within a security context. Who can see what on the original document and amongst the collections of annotations. Good presentation.
  • Richard Monson-Haefel, Senior Analyst for the Burton Group, talks about Java Superplatforms including those from IBM, Oracle, and BEA. Richard makes a compelling case that essentially divides the world of Java based platforms between these big players and open source where open source represents the lower end of the market space (read as less large scale enterprise deployments). I am not sure I completely accept Richard's viewpoint as the most accurate descriptive or prescriptive of the current and future marketplace. But, it is certainly feasible that things could end up exactly as he describes. My hesitation is driven by my knowledge that some corporations do, in fact, thrive on multiple and varied solutions. Many corporations' IT shops are thrown a mix of applications by their business units and expected to help them find coexistence without forcing a one-size fits all solution. Do NOT read this comment as a rejection of Richard's position. I do believe Richard speaks for some, perhaps many, organizations.