Paul Cox's Blog

The Reagan Diaries.

2007-05-20T13:11:00.000-06:00

Ronald Reagan was my favorite president of all time. This mornings meet the press had a discussion about his new book, and a special video session highlighting the number of times that Reagan was on meet the press. Click on the title of this entry for the MSNBC website.

His greatest legacy is the economy that we have today. Instituting "Reaganomics" was terribly difficult. His administration was battered badly as a result of bringing a new economic order to the world. Hanging on took immense courage and fortitude. For 2 years there was never any doubt in Reagan's mind that it would succeed and it was the right thing to do. It makes one reflect on this stoic persistence in facing the associated difficulties that we have today. To my way of thinking President George W. Bush is an excellent protege of the Reagan mold.

The influence and dedication of Nancy Reagan throughout the political career of Reagan leaves me empty and to be frank a little jealous. For it is the dedication and commitment that she showed the country and her husband that made his accomplishments possible. And it is for this reason that Laura Bush will be known for as well.

The U.S. Democrats are insane.

2007-04-29T12:31:00.000-06:00

Today on NBC's Meet the Press Senator Joe Biden stated that the bill that he passed last week, establishing a firm date for retreat, stated.

No we are not setting a deadline, read what it says, it says that the target date, left up to the Generals, to determine whether or not it is appropriate to withdraw all forces.

The U.S. Democrats, on the bill they have passed, and the President will veto, has handed the authority of war to the non-elected Generals.

This will be the end of Biden's political career, and the Democrats will be so damaged by this, they will loose in 2008.

Two new blogs and one common denominator.

2007-04-22T20:45:00.000-06:00

I have discovered two excellent blogs that provide excellent content. Both are based on classes taken at the various universities. These blogs enable you to follow on and learn the important points of each course.

The first one is from Cornell http://expertvoices.nsdl.org/cornell-info204/

The second one is from Stanford and follows the course of economics professor Paul Romer. Located at http://econblog.aplia.com/index.html

A very great man.

2007-04-17T14:28:00.000-06:00

The Wall Street Journal reported today the following;

Professor Liviu Librescu, 76, threw himself in front of the shooter when the [murderer] attempted to enter his classroom. The Israeli mechanics and engineering lecturer was shot to death, "but all the students lived--because of him," Virginia Tech student Asael Arad--also an Israeli--told Army Radio.

Several of Librescu's other students sent e-mails to his wife, Marlena, telling of how he had blocked the gunman's way and saved their lives, said Librescu's son, Joe.

"My father blocked the doorway with his body and asked the students to flee," Joe Librescu said in a telephone interview from his home outside of Tel Aviv. "Students started opening windows and jumping out."
Librescu was a Holocaust survivor who escaped communist Romania for Israel in 1978 and moved to Virginia in 1986. By coincidence, he was murdered on Holocaust Remembrance Day.

A man who clearly understood what freedom, survival and heroism means. It is people like this who are fighting for the safety and security of our way of life, whether it is a suicide bomber or a South Korean it makes no difference, I hope we can recognize this.

Not the right answer.

2007-02-24T11:08:00.000-07:00

I am a proponent of the Dr. Carlotta Perez long term economic thinking crowd. I have written about these in the past, and have a concern that the average person whom is relying on their retirement income, home and investments in mutual funds will amount to a hill of beans when the time comes the people who depend upon them. The only security you have is the material between your ears. This is consistent with Perez, in that she sees the need for this in order to transfer to a new and better economic level.

I just read an interesting piece of analysis regarding the Amaranth Hedge Fund failure. That the risks are being transferred from the Hedge Funds to the Pension Holders and Mutual Fund owners. The risk is noted by one who had reviewed the theory as Caveat Emptor or Buyer Beware. Which to me is not the right answer.

If the average pension beneficiary, or mutual fund investor has to understand these highly complex principles and tools being used within these funds and being developed as we proceed. Then we are headed toward the melt down that Perez speaks of, and I guess the good news is that it will be soon. Far better for most of these losses be incurred when the people are young enough to recover and move forward with their retirement.

Just realized something about RSS.

2007-02-23T18:29:00.000-07:00

Time doesn't matter. RSS eliminates the need to stick to a schedule. Why because your readers will get to it when they are ready. RSS is an asynchronous time portal.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

2006-12-31T07:00:00.000-07:00

As I have done in years past, a quotation from my favorite author, Ralph Waldo Emerson. This years selection is Abraham Lincoln, an address made at the president's funeral.

RWE.org - The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson - Volume XI - Miscellanies (1884)
Contributed by Ralph Waldo Emerson
XV
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

REMARKS AT THE FUNERAL SERVICES HELD IN CONCORD, APRIL 19, 1865

" NATURE, they say, doth dote,
And cannot make a man
Save on some worn-out plan,
Repeating us by rote:
For him her Old-World moulds aside she threw,
And, choosing sweet clay from the breast
Of the unexhausted West,
'With stuff untainted shaped a hero new,
Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true.
How beautiful to see
Once more a shepherd of mankind indeed,
Who loved his charge, but never loved to lead;
One whose meek flock the people joyed to be,
Not lured by any cheat of birth,
But by his clear-grained human worth,
And brave old wisdom of sincerity!
They knew that outward grace is dust;
They could not choose but trust
In that sure-footed mind's unfaltering skill,
And supple-tempered will
That bent, like perfect steel, to spring again and thrust.

Nothing of Europe here,
Or, then, of Europe fronting mornward still,
Ere any names of Serf and Peer
Could Nature's equal scheme deface; . .
Here was a type of the true elder race,
And one of Plutarch's men talked with us face to face."
LOWELL, Commemoration Ode.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

WE meet under the gloom of a calamity which darkens down over the minds of good men in all civil society, as the fearful tidings travel over sea, over land, from country to country, like the shadow of an uncalculated eclipse over the planet. Old as history is, and manifold as are its tragedies, I doubt if any death has caused so much pain to mankind as this has caused, or will cause, on its announcement ; and this, not so much because nations are by modern arts brought so closely together, as because of the mysterious hopes and fears which, in the present day, are connected with the name and institutions of America.

In this country, on Saturday, every one was struck dumb, and saw at first only deep below deep, as he meditated on the ghastly blow. And perhaps, at this hour, when the coffin which contains the dust of the President sets forward on its long march through mourning states, on its way to his home in Illinois, we might well be silent, and suffer the awful voices of the time to thunder to us. Yes, but that first despair was brief: the man was not so to be mourned. He was the most active and hopeful of men; and his work had not perished: but acclamations of praise for the task he had accomplished burst out into a song of triumph, which even tears for his death cannot keep down.

The President stood before us as a man of the people. He was thoroughly American, had never crossed the sea, had never been spoiled by English insularity or French dissipation ; a quite native, aboriginal man, as an acorn from the oak ; no aping of foreigners, no frivolous accomplishments, Kentuckian born, working on a farm, a flatboatman, a captain in the Black Hawk War, a country lawyer, a representative in the rural legislature of Illinois ;- on such modest foundations the broad structure of his fame was laid. How slowly, and yet by happily prepared steps, he came to his place. All of us remember - it is only a history of five or six years - the surprise and the disappointment of the country at his first nomination by the convention at Chicago. Mr. Seward, then in the culmination of his good fame, was the favorite of the Eastern States. And when the new and comparatively unknown name of Lincoln was announced (notwithstanding the report of the acclamations of that convention), we heard the result coldly and sadly. It seemed too rash, on a purely local reputation, to build so grave a trust in such anxious times ; and men naturally talked of the chances in politics as in-calculable. But it turned out not to be chance. The profound good opinion which the people of Illinois and of the West had conceived of him, and which they had imparted to their col-leagues, that they also might justify themselves to their constituents at home, was not rash, though they did not begin to know the riches of his worth.'

A plain man of the people, an extraordinary fortune attended him. He offered no shining qualities at the first encounter ; he did not offend by superiority. He had a face and manner which disarmed suspicion, which inspired confidence, which confirmed good will. He was a man without vices. He had a strong sense of duty, which it was very easy for him to obey. Then, he had what farmers call a long head ; was excellent in working out the sum for him-self; in arguing his case and convincing you fairly and firmly. Then, it turned out that he was a great worker ; had prodigious faculty of performance ; worked easily. A good worker is so rare ; everybody has some disabling quality. In a host of young men that start together and promise so many brilliant leaders for the next age, each fails on trial ; one by bad health, one by conceit, or by love of pleasure, or lethargy, or an ugly temper, - each has some disqualifying fault that throws him out of the career. But this man was sound to the core, cheerful, persistent, all right for labor, and liked nothing so well.

Then, he had a vast good nature, which made him tolerant and accessible to all ; fair-minded, leaning to the claim of the petitioner ; affable, and not sensible to the affliction which the innumerable visits paid to him when President would have brought to any one else.' And how this good nature became a noble humanity, in many a tragic case which the events of the war brought to him, every one will remember; and with what increasing tenderness he dealt when a whole race was thrown on his compassion. The poor negro said of him, on an impressive occasion, " Massa Linkum am eberywhere."
Then his broad good humor, running easily into jocular talk, in which he delighted and in which he excelled, was a rich gift to this wise man. It enabled him to keep his secret; to meet every kind of man and every rank in society ; to take off the edge of the severest decisions ; to mask his own purpose and sound his companion ; and to catch with true instinct the temper of every company he addressed. And, more than all, it is to a man of severe labor, in anxious and exhausting crises, the natural restorative, good as sleep, and is the protection of the overdriven brain against rancor and in-sanity.

He is the author of a multitude of good sayings, so disguised as pleasantries that it is certain they had no reputation at first but as jests ; and only later, by the very acceptance and adoption they find in the mouths of millions, turn out to be the wisdom of the hour. I am sure if this man had ruled in a period of less facility of printing, he would have become mythological in a very few years, like Æsop or Pilpay, or one of the Seven Wise Masters, by his fables and proverbs. But the weight and penetration of many passages in his letters, messages and speeches, hidden now by the very closeness of their application to the moment, are destined hereafter to wide fame. What pregnant definitions ; what unerring common sense ; what fore-sight ; and, on great occasion, what lofty, and more than national, what humane tone ! His brief speech at Gettysburg will not easily be surpassed by words on any recorded occasion. This, and one other American speech, that of John Brown to the court that tried him, and a part of Kossuth's speech at Birmingham, can only be compared with each other, and with no fourth.

His occupying the chair of state was a triumph of the good sense of mankind, and of the public conscience. This middle-class country had got a middle-class president, at last. Yes, in manners and sympathies, but not in powers, for his powers were superior. This man grew according to the need. His mind mastered the problem of the day ; and as the problem grew, so did his comprehension of it. Rarely was man so fitted to the event. In the midst of fears and jealousies, in the Babel of counsels and parties, this man wrought incessantly with all his might and all his honesty, laboring to find what the people wanted, and how to obtain that. It cannot be said there is any exaggeration of his worth. If ever a man was fairly tested, he was. There was no lack of resistance, nor of slander, nor of ridicule. The times have allowed no state secrets ; the nation has been in such ferment, such multitudes had to be trusted, that no secret could be kept. Every door was ajar, and we know all that be-fell.

Then, what an occasion was the whirlwind of the war. Here was place for no holiday magistrate, no fair-weather sailor ; the new pilot was hurried to the helm in a tornado. In four years, - four years of battle-days, - his endurance, his fertility of resources, his magnanimity, were sorely tried and never found wanting. There, by his courage, his justice, his even temper, his fertile counsel, his humanity, he stood a heroic figure in the centre of a heroic epoch. He is the true history of the American people in his time. Step by step he walked before them ; slow with their slowness, quickening his march by theirs, the true representative of this continent ; an entirely public man ; father of his country, the pulse of twenty millions throbbing in his heart, the thought of their minds articulated by his tongue.

Adam Smith remarks that the axe, which in Houbraken's portraits of British kings and worthies is engraved under those who have suffered at the block, adds a certain lofty charm to the picture. And who does not see, even in this tragedy so recent, how fast the terror and ruin of the massacre are already burning into glory around the victim ? Far happier this fate than to have lived to be wished away ; to have watched the decay of his own faculties ; to have seen - perhaps even he - the proverbial ingratitude of statesmen; to have seen mean men preferred. Had he not lived long enough to keep the greatest promise that ever man made to his fellow men, - the practical abolition of slavery ? He had seen Tennessee, Missouri and Maryland emancipate their slaves. He had seen Savannah, Charleston and Richmond surrendered ; had seen the main army of the rebellion lay down its arms. He had conquered the public opinion of Canada, England and France.1 Only Washington can compare with him in fortune.

And what if it should turn out, in the unfolding of the web, that he had reached the term ; that this heroic deliverer could no longer serve us ; that the rebellion had touched its natural conclusion, and what remained to be done required new and uncommitted hands, - a new spirit born out of the ashes of the war ; and that Heaven, wishing to show the world a completed benefactor, shall make him serve his country even more by his death than by his life ? Nations, like kings, are not good by facility and complaisance. " The kindness of kings consists in justice and strength." Easy good nature has been the dangerous foible of the Republic, and it was necessary that its enemies should outrage it, and drive us to unwonted firmness, to secure the salvation of this country in the next ages.

The ancients believed in a serene and beautiful Genius which ruled in the affairs of nations; which, with a slow but stern justice, carried for-ward the fortunes of certain chosen houses, weeding out single offenders or offending families, and securing at last the firm prosperity of the favorites of Heaven. It was too narrow a view of the Eternal Nemesis. There is a serene Providence which rules the fate of nations, which makes little account of time, little of one generation or race, makes no account of disasters, conquers alike by what is called defeat or by what is called victory, thrusts aside enemy and obstruction, crushes everything immoral as in-human, and obtains the ultimate triumph of the best race by the sacrifice of everything which resists the moral laws of the world.' It makes its own instruments, creates the man for the time, trains him in poverty, inspires his genius, and arms him for his task. It has given every race its own talent, and ordains that only that race which combines perfectly with the virtues of all shall endure.'

Apple wish list.

2006-12-20T20:35:00.000-07:00

A favorite past time of mine is predicting, in the form of a wish list, what Apple will be announcing at the MacWorld conference in January. This, as I have said many times before, will be an interesting year for the products and services of our favorite company.

First 2006 should be recognized as the year of the public opinion turn around. Apple is now shining far more strongly in the consumer mind then Microsoft ever has. Maybe I am mistaken, but it seems like their is healthy renewed interest in technology and that includes anything but Microsoft.

Lets break this wish list into those that we know of, and those that are possible surprises. We know that iTV will be available since it was announced previously. A product that will bridge the computer to the television and the rest will be history. The ease of use that Apple products will make this a sure winner and have the TV companies doing all kinds of innovative combinations with the wizard's at Apple.

We also know that OS X 10.5 will be available and includes Sun Microsystems phenomenal Z File System (ZFS). What is not known is the price of the OS and I would not be surprised if Jobs et al fired a missile across Microsoft's bow and provide all of its OS upgrades for free. This I think would be Killer, as in Microsoft.

The iPhone is unknown at this time and without the specs and functionality its difficult to figure out how Apple will make this difficult transition. I'll leave it up to their imaginations to provide the wow factor.

Two things that I would really like to see is some blade servers for XServe and a home configurable server type of device. Something that has high bandwidth, TeraBytes of storage and GigaRam capacity to sit in your home, use minimal power and provide a central location for all these nice file we all have.

Finally I would like to see Apple and Sun Microsystems do some kind of strategic lockup in terms of how they can and will saturate the business market. Just public recognition of the symbiotic nature that the two firms have.

Say Goodbye Mr. Dinning.

2006-11-27T14:13:00.000-07:00

This past weekend we saw the Alberta Progressive Conservatives hold their leadership convention. The first ballot showed a couple of good surprises.

1) First surprise is that Dinning did not take the leadership. With 30% of the vote he leads but should have locked it up. He's out in my opinion, it shouldn't take 10 years for him to secure the leadership, but apparently he has.
2) Peter Morton looks like our man. A good leader that will take it to Ottawa.
3) Stelmeck (sp) should be able to secure a nice cabinet post in Morton's Legislature.

The comments of the leaders at the end were very interesting. Morton would not accept the endorsement of other candidates, preferring to use the voters results on the second ballot. Gotta love that.

Dinning's comments were that he polled #1 in both Calgary and Edmonton and #2 in the rural areas. Isn't it just like the perfect bureaucrat to note the statistically positive results of an abject failure?

Free the MIPS

2006-11-27T14:06:00.000-07:00

Goodmorning Silicon Valley is reporting the following today.

"Free the MIPS!: The unofficial motto of high tech may be "smaller, cheaper, faster," but it's easy to forget how far we've come and how fast. In a post Sunday, Chris Anderson, of Long Tail fame, took note of a milestone in computing economics -- we have recently reached a consumer price on processing power of a penny per MIPS (million instructions per second). Intel's Core Duo running at 2.13 GHz costs around $200 at retail and can perform about 20,000 MIPS. "I remember my first 6 MHz 286 PC in 1982 that did 0.9 MIPS," Anderson writes. "I have no idea what the CPU cost then, but the PC it came in cost nearly $3,000 so it couldn't have been cheap. Say it was around $1,000/MIPS back then. Now it's $0.01/MIPS. I know I shouldn't be astounded by Moore's Law anymore, but that really is something."
Alec Saunders offers a few more data points:
• In 1977, Digital Equipment's Vax 11/780 was a 1 MIPS minicomputer, and the Cray-1 supercomputer delivered blindingly fast execution at 150 MIPS.
• A 1999 era Pentium III/500 delivered 800 MIPS of processing power.
• A year later, in 2000, the Playstation 2 pumped out an astounding 6000 MIPS.
• Current embedded processors (like the PXA900 in [the] Blackberry Pearl, or the ARM 1136 in the Nokia N93 ...) are capable of 2000-era desktop processor speeds — in the range of 1000 MIPS, depending on battery consumption.
"It's 2006 now." Saunders writes. "If the current trend holds true, and we can each carry 20,000 MIPS of processing power in the palms of our hands by 2012, what will we do with that power?" Good question; care to speculate? "

Wow, that is astounding. Based on this information the Supercomputer that was installed in the University of Calgary in 1983 and costs $400 million, could be replicated for $4.00.

Found this quote from Paul Romer

2006-11-10T20:17:00.000-07:00

Most economists would agree with Paul Romer:

“...the most important ideas of all are meta-ideas. These are about how to support the production and transmission of other ideas. The British invented patents and copyrights in the 17th century. North Americans peer-reviewed competitive grants for basic research in the 20th century...[T]he country that takes the lead in the 21st century will be the one that implements an innovation supporting the production of commercially relevant ideas in the private sector.”

Meta ideas are what I have pursued in both:

http://innnovation-in-oil-and-gas.blogspot.com
http://mammals-shed.blogspot.com

The toxic level of the U.S. election.

2006-09-29T19:34:00.000-06:00

The boys are getting quite nasty in the Democratic party. First we have the blow up of President Clinton on Fox last Friday, secondly we have MSNBC's Olbermann sterling defense of Clintons integrity and possibly his feelings.

I know one thing, in ten years people will reflect on President Bush as having the guts to do what has to be done against an aggressive enemy. One that cowers and hides in the civilizations and blows up innocent people. But that will take a long time for people to realize that the strength of the president was just right.

The other thing we do know is that the strength of the vile language of Olberman defense of Bill Clinton is a necessary and vital service to the former president. Understanding that the buck stops at the presidents office, we know that Clinton was out beating the bushes for more young female targets, and therefore needs the defence and cover stories.

They say rape is about power. You have the most powerful man in the world, in his 50's subjecting a 23 year old women to sex. That it is fair to say is a classic definition of rape. Secondly, the wonderful President that Mr. Olberman must defend fails to recall that the president lied about his relations with Ms. Lewinsky. He also used the full power of the white house and his position to run this girls reputation into the ground. Lets call this the second rape of Monica Lewinski by the former President Bill Clinton.

I know that history will judge President Bush fairly, and I know that history will judge Ms. Lewinski fairly. I only hope that the world sees the full scope of slick Willie deceit and scumbagedness soon. As I say politics is toxic.

Apple, Google and...

2006-09-29T11:41:00.000-06:00

When I first tried an iPod I went out and bought three of them. Why, two for the kids and one for myself. The first piece of technology that I had an instant love affair with. Now I had fallen in love with Apple many years ago and the postings her probably reflect that this relationship has not disappointed.

I have been a rabid fan of Google's for the majority of their existence. Now it is very clear that at some point I fell in love with their products. I use literally all of their solutions and have thought about what I would like next and invariably, these things on my wish list appear! Gotta love em.

One thing about being an Apple fan...

2006-08-08T21:20:00.000-06:00

They never disappoint. The new MacPro and XServe products round out the transition to Intel. The latest products making Apple the first company to go full dual core throughout their offerings.

Vista will have its hands full with Leopard. One thing you can be assured of is the availability of Intel Processors will not be a limit on the future Apple shipment volume.

Have been busy...

2006-06-23T12:59:00.000-06:00

Writing to my two new "other" blogs. Maintaining all three will be a bit of a challenge but we'll see how it goes.

The address for innovation in oil and gas.

The address for mammals shed.

Premier Manning

2006-04-02T22:35:00.000-06:00

This is an absolute must do. Preston Manning as Alberta's Premier can make this province into something significant.

Fun with closing stock prices.

2006-03-16T09:59:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, when Apple formally announced the use of Intel chips the stock rose and closed that day at $80.86.

Now Sun seeing their own revival happening are getting into the act. Yesterday Sun stock closed at $4.86. Sun uses their own proprietary Sparc chips and AMD's Intel compatible chips.

The writing is now on the wall...

2006-03-13T09:53:00.000-07:00

By clicking on the title of this entry you will be taken to an article in Forbes magazine.

This story has significant implications to the economic situation we are in. The two largest credit card companies are in a fearsome battle to lower their borrowing costs. What MBNA did was merge with a large bank, and what Capital One is doing is buying up a series of smaller regional banks.

The stated reason that these two large institutions are doing such is to lower the cost of capital. As their cost of capital is rising, they are seeking out lower cost of capital sources to fund their operations. What both are able to achieve in terms of lowering their costs is the ability to access depositor monies that are available through the bank.

Yikes, if you ever thought that a credit crunch was possible, now would be the time to start acting to mitigate the impact of any crunch. Where is the regulation that has to stop this type of activity? Oh, I forgot, the Fed is financing itself on credit cards.

Canada West Foundation

2006-02-23T18:15:00.000-07:00

The Canada West Foundation have published a report "Coming up next: The transformation of Western Canada's economy."

An excellent report published by a Western Canadian think tank located here in Calgary. The report documents in fine detail the attributes of the western economy and breaks it down by industry, province and other means. They have also gone through each major industry with recommendations of what type of actions should be taken to secure the longer term value of the province. It will be interesting to see if the reports recommendations make it into the mind set of the policy makers.

The point that it highlights is of particularly concern for me as well. As an entrepreneur I would think that access to risk capital is the lifeblood of new ideas. I would think, because I gave up looking for investment capital in this city (Calgary) many years ago. If you are selling the latest idea in oil and gas you are oversubscribed 10 fold. If you have anything outside of the explicit oil and gas exploration and development domain, forget it.

This town has now become a myopic, poorly balanced oil and gas town. No alternate industries exist. When it comes to innovation and using local firms, forget it. The companies now consider only the high priced American firms as being representative of "proper" suppliers. The number of time I have been told that "we don't hire locally" for research or any higher level work, only the filler stuff. Frustrating.

These people are now able to reap what they sew, and they have sewn nothing. It is an absolute ghost town. An innovative thought is to get a good U of C education and work in the oil and gas industry until you retire. Compare your vehicle and home with the neighbors and friends and all is well.

The Canada West Foundation has highlighted this same issue as a concern. I don't think that much will be done about it, both oil and gas made billionaires, Murray Edwards vice chairman and Allan Markin a donor of the Canada West Foundation have essentially told me to go to hell regarding financing of Genesys. So mark me down as un-optimistic about this report meeting or stimulating any real change.

Ambassador Wilson.

2006-02-20T14:14:00.000-07:00

Just doesn't have that ring as ambassador Manning would have. We can only assume that Mr. Manning was other wise not interested and has better things up his sleeve.

Sticking with the Americans, the Wall Street Journal published an editorial that states Newt Gingrich may be a candidate for the Republican nomination. I think that Newt is exactly what the Americans need. A fiscal conservative that gets the job done. The congress, since he left has been a sham of over spending lost souls. Gingrich would be an excellent follow on to Bush.

No tribute, accolade or assertion is adequate...

2006-01-28T12:19:00.000-07:00

To suggest that the next American ambassador is possibly Preston Manning is purely a selfish choice.

What Mr. Manning could provide Canada is immeasurable and that is why it is our choice and desire. He has effectively saved Canada and for that we are eternally grateful, and hope that he takes the position.

As a country, we can not provide anything to Mr. Manning that is worthy. God let it be so.

Noticed a trend.

2006-01-14T13:46:00.000-07:00

The past few years have been interesting from the point of society in general. What I see is a decidedly different behavior of people. Lets categorize them as "plugged-in". Usually younger, toting a back pack, iPod's are ubiquitous, something in their hand to read, and most of all a quasi-nomadic / driven attitude. I am seeing more and more of this situation in many types of major facility, Library, train etc.

People are morphing into intellectual bots. The Internet has provided these people with any and all information regarding their areas of interest. As a result they are "living" in their own intellectual world 24 / 7. Fascinating and I will continue to observe, as I feel that the last few years have become somewhat of an ever expanding funnel of information. Managing, controlling and operating in this world needs you to be "plugged-in".

Apple is just beginning...

2006-01-14T12:16:00.000-07:00

It was noted that on Friday 13, 2006 that the market capitalization of Apple had now exceeded Dell. If they are still paying Steve Jobs $1 per year, that has to be the best salary in the history of time. It was also noted that after Tuesday's Intel annoucement, the stock closed at $80.86.

Now that Apple has achieved the markets recognition of a solid performer, it will be on a tear. I would predict that apple's market cap may ultimately top $250 billion before the end of the decade. A sound investment, but wait there's more, and maybe the first company to breach the $1 trillion market cap level.

When Apple achieves that lofty level, then the ding that Jobs says he wants to put in the universe, will begin to show.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

2005-12-31T18:46:00.000-07:00

As in 2004, the best way to end the year is with a quotation from Emerson. My nominee for the finest author of all time, his writing style and quality are unmatched. The choice of subject manner being highly philosophical, and provides the reader with an understanding that transends the times. This years selection is a selection from his book of poetry. I selected "The Problem" for its discussion of the church and ties in strongly with his speech entitled "An Address" in which he delivered to the Harvard Divinity School's senior class on July 15, 1838. An address that provided such controversy and conflict that he was not asked back for nearly 30 years.

I like a church, I like a cowl,
I love a prophet of the soul,

And on my heart monastic aisles
Fall like sweet strains or pensive smiles;
Yet not for all his faith can see,
Would I that cowled churchman be.
Why should the vest on him allure,
Which I could not on me endure?

Not from a vain or shallow thought
His awful Jove young Phidias brought;
Never from lips of cunning fell
The thrilling Delphic oracle;
Out from the heart of nature rolled
The burdens of the Bible old;
The litanies of nations came,
Like the volcano's tongue of flame,
Up from the burning core below,
The canticles of love and woe.
The hand that rounded Peter's dome,
And groined the aisles of Christian Rome,
Wrought in a sad sincerity,
Himself from God he could not free;
He builded better than he knew,
The conscious stone to beauty grew.

Know'st thou what wove yon woodbird's nest
Of leaves and feathers from her breast;
Or how the fish outbuilt its shell,
Painting with morn each annual cell;
Or how the sacred pine tree adds
To her old leaves new myriads?
Such and so grew these holy piles,
Whilst love and terror laid the tiles.
Earth proudly wears the Parthenon
As the best gem upon her zone;
And Morning opes with haste her lids
To gaze upon the Pyramids;
O'er England's abbeys bends the sky
As on its friends with kindred eye;
For out of Thought's interior sphere
These wonders rose to upper air,
And nature gladly gave them place,
Adopted them into her race,
And granted them an equal date
With Andes and with Ararat.

These temples grew as grows the grass,
Art might obey but not surpass.
The passive Master lent his hand
To the vast soul that o'er him planned,
And the same power that reared the shrine,
Bestrode the tribes that knelt within.
Even the fiery Pentecost
Girds with one flame the Countless host,
Trances the heart through chanting quires,
And through the priest the mind inspires.

The word unto the prophet spoken
Was writ on tables yet unbroken;
The word by seers or sibyls told
In groves of oak, or fanes of gold,
Still floats upon the morning wind,
Still whispers to the willing mind.
One accent of the Holy Ghost
The heedless world hath never lost.

I know what say the Fathers wise,
The Book itself before me lies,
Old Chrysostom, best Augustine,
And he who blent both in his line,
The younger Golden-lips or mines,
Taylor, the Shakspeare of divines,
His words are music in my ear,
I see his cowled portrait dear,
And yet for all his faith could see,
I would not the good bishop be.

The annual ritual

2005-12-23T18:13:00.000-07:00

The annual Apple computer wishlist.

This year Macworld will be held on January 10, 2006 and will provide much mystery in terms of the new offerings from Steve Jobs et al. The wishlist this year is more strategic then the actual product announcements that some are hoping for. The first one I think should seriously be considered.

What would the strategic value for Apple be if in the future all operating systems upgrades were free. The company earns a sizable amount of revenue from operating system sales, but would it be too costly to hand out all upgrades for free?

What would the effect on the marketplace be? Apple is one of only two firms in the world that are charging for upgrades, and it should be an area of competitive differentiation for Apple to clearly identify their difference to the other firm that charges for operating systems. This has been an area where Microsoft has eliminated many of their competitors in the past. Establishing the free browser was the fatal blow to netscape, as it then could not charge for its wares.

This would put Apple in the majority with Sun, Linux and most computer vendors that sell Intel boxes. The only firm remaining would then have to do the same when their long awaited and highly touted system arrives in 2007, or whenever. The reduced costs of the overall purchase would be offset by maintaining only a current offering, and more rapid reductions of the older systems, and the enhanced volumes of computers that could be sold.

The second recommendation or wish on the list is something that is inevitable. The innovation and building of a business around the iPod has to be winding down. They have done a good job, and the focus could now change to enhance the halo effect on their computer offerings.

With Intel, IBM, and Freescale providing processors to Apple there is none of the restrictions on the upside of selling computers. Complaining about IBM's slow response to provide PowerPC chips is inconsistent with the companies DNA. They do things themselves and now have the three major chip manufacturers providing them with their wares to ensure a solid volume of computers. Look to have the company increase the market supply of their offerings.

The rumor of having a home entertainment computer I think is a given. The video based iPod makes that a given. The war with the rest of the world for the home entertainment systems will have begun in earnest after January 10. Look for 40" monitors to go with those new systems.

I still would like to see more high end systems that are providing the "home server" type of offering. Having the data and applications that you use available anywhere and anytime needs a dedicated server that is fairly high end. The problem is the configuration issues, well handled by Apple traditionally, especially in their server based operating system. The other problem is the power consumption, heating, noise and size of a traditional 1U sized unit. An affordable home server would be something that I think would sell.

That's it, the demands for more are mitigated by the knowledge that the company will have a few surprises and the general mood of most mac owners, such as myself.

Welcome to the party...

2005-12-02T20:30:00.000-07:00

Read two articles in the Harvard Business Review and McKinsey Quarterly regarding collaboration, the future value of it, and most importantly the need for new business models and better performing organizational structures. Points that are of keen interest to me.

A little of my history of the past few years, I published my master's thesis entitled "Plurality should not be assumed without necessity" (the simpler way) in 2003, only to have it become the lightening rod of my misery. In not realizing what I was saying would be interpreted differently by the large oil and gas companies, I thought that they would see the value in what I was saying from the point of view of the positives of organizational performance and innovation in oil and gas. Instead they chose to see it as an attack on their bureaucracy, and as a threat to their station in life. Lesson learned, and one that I hope others can learn from my experience.

The key to my thesis was a revised use of the joint operating committee. This organizational structure is an international cultural basis for oil and gas investment, it's legal and financial framework, and the primary manner of operational decision making. These four well established frameworks are fundamentally ignored by the hierarchy who have justified their existence by managing the accountability of their actions.

If the poorly managed accountability was moved over to the joint operating committee, then all five of these frameworks could be aligned to work in a harmony that has predominately alluded the oil and gas industry. This method of organization is consistent with both the Harvard and McKinsey recommendations noted here, however, another key point in my thesis was that to institute the proposed "radical" changes would need the ERP style systems be built for the proposed organization first.

Nonetheless, the need to re-organize an oil and gas firm away from the hierarchical bureaucracy and move toward the collaborative and innovative joint operating committee is necessary and should be premised on the higher commodity prices reallocating the resources to fund the innovations created through the joint operating committee.

The key note in making this change happen is that the supporting organizational ERP style systems have to be built to support the new collaborative and innovative organizations. The desire to change does not exist in the bureaucracy, who have it quite comfortable and don't desire to work any harder or smarter. They have high prices, and the problem will fall to the next generation after their retirements. This I feel has been a complete capitulation of their responsibilities to the organizations and the oil and gas consumer.

The references to the two articles are located here McKinsey and Harvard's.

Now that these well regarded institutions have piped in with comments that are directed globally to all businesses and 100% consistent with the comments that I have made for oil and gas, maybe my misery will diminish, or Harvard's and McKinsey's misery is just about to start.

A new corporate objective.

2005-11-27T20:11:00.000-07:00

Reading this article in the Hellenic News, I found to be of significant coincidence in my overall thinking. First the recent news regarding GM and Ford and the issues that they currently are facing lead me to conclude, as I have been wanting to conclude, that the traditional market forces are carving new organizational structures, and new business models on predominately North America, but specifically on the U.S. in the form of, accelerated creative destruction.

The former Soviet Union systems eventually became incapable of meeting the most basic needs of the society, and subsequently was the downfall of communism. New systems of government and organizational means are replacing the old Soviet methods and providing a way of life for Russians etc. I often thought that there is no reason that the information technologies couldn't provide a similar means to erode the authoritarian control of large organizations, and as a result, technology mirror the decline of the Soviet Union here in North America.

With GM and Ford now seriously questioning their competitive nature, and faced with their ultimate downfall, the time has come to seriously consider the ways and means that the United States and its "comfortable" European and Canadian businesses, with new means of conducting their operations. The large organization, much like the communist party in Russia doesn't function and is being replaced, by what I describe as self organizing groups. The writing is on the wall, and the time for them to have solved these problems has now passed, and only their advanced decline to be exposed and finally their existence extinguished.

But what is it that will replace the ways and means of the old corporate model. Something has to provide the means for society to function and progress. This progress needs to be mirrored in the organizations performance, or in this case, has to provide a way to fill the void left by the larger organizations. I think I found it in the highlighted article, and that is, the pursuit of happiness. The U.S. constitution embraces this objective and is the primary reason for the U.S. to continue its dominance. The pursuit of happiness is, as the author of the article noted, what Aristotle discovered as the key objective of all mankind. That the author notes this should now be a corporate objective seems counter to the needs of the organization, and maybe it is, but I think it is in direct support of the society and its individuals.

Key to this entire blog entry, is the Dr. Anthony Giddens theory of structuration that has resonated with me for the past two years. The objectives and progress of Society, Organizations and People are constrained, and supported, and must move together. One can not "break" out from the others or advance without similar points of progress elsewhere.

Key to structuration is how do the organizations move with the people and societies. I have felt that the organizations were holding back society, and new models needed to be created to support the society in the future. Now, by adopting the corporate objective of "the pursuit of happiness" these organizations can move forward together in harmony with society and its people. This to me is key in the acceleration of positive change in the ways and means of Western society.

Google Base

2005-11-16T12:18:00.000-07:00

Google announces "Google Base" and what I think is a key component of their strategy. Managing the necessary attributes of a web server to host your content takes valuable time and effort away from the contents development.

Focusing on the content of your site should be your primary concern and with Google Base that is available, free. The title of this entry will take you to the site that I have set up.

Microsoft sounds and looks pathetic.

2005-11-16T12:06:00.000-07:00

Every major piece of news regarding technology announced by Google, Yahoo or anyone else is quickly followed by Microsoft's version. These Microsoft announcements take the point of view that when their product is launched it will be the best. The value of the others innovation is verified based on the time that it takes Bill Gates to say, "me too".

Time for the big guy to realize his run is over and the world is passing him by. Microsoft's venture into High Performance Computing is too little, and way too late. Announcing products in there planning stage was an effective strategy to stifle innovation and ensure Microsoft's monopoly was maintained. Microsoft's problem is that their competitors announcements of new products are all that are announced, leaving them looking truly pathetic.

Dr. Peter Drucker, 1910 - 2005

2005-11-13T17:55:00.000-07:00

Dr. Drucker was a leader in the business consulting area during the 1900's and has many of his theories and principles being used in business today. Many have gone as far as stating that Drucker invented large organizations. A fitting tribute, however, not necessarily the appropriate methods for business to lead this century, where competitive advantages, business cycles and globalization make the structured hierarchies look like dinosaurs.

Maybe Dr. Drucker's passing will coincide with the death of big business. Let the innovation and new organizations take a shot at the game. As I have been desirous of having new organizational structures replace the structured hierarchy. The new organizational structures will use the Internet to facilitate self organizing teams using collaboration and web services as replacements.

Justice in France?

2005-11-07T11:35:00.000-07:00

Today marks the French comments that the fighting as a result of the riots is the worst they have seen since WW II. Something seems to be just in this statement. As I have noted in this blog before, I am not a fan of the French and think they need to change their ways to be more in line with globalization.

Is there a correlation between France's current difficulties and their position on terrorism. Clearly they are not being attacked directly, but appear to have a stronger friendship with the terrorists then they do with the countries that saved their butts in that world war they were in. But it goes deeper then that, the French were involved in direct business with Saddam Hussein and lost out on post Saddam commercial involvement with the coalition in Iraq and had Iraq's debt to France relieved.

Mean while back at the ranch, the U.S. has consistently held the highest ethics in dealing in the international marketplace. Although race riots occurred during the 1960's in Detroit, generally the population remains united, barring well articulated political issues. Here-in lies the reasons that the U.S. remains peaceful and France faces these riots.

Both are open and free countries. However the U.S. is the so called melting pot. Where the individuals rights trump any and all other considerations. Where you can actively participate in any legal activity where ever you want. The point is the individual is free.

In France it appears segregation of the Muslim immigrants is the root cause of the riots. Segregation was outlawed in the U.S. from the Rosa Parks episodes. France should learn its lesson quickly and establish appropriate anti-terrorism and immigration policies. France would certainly state that the Muslim religion is the right of Muslims to practice. Note this does not necessarily extend to the individuals within France.

Segregation limits the rights and freedoms of the people that are segregated. Not integrating these people within their country has been the allegedly civilized (i.e. the French way) approach the French have pursued. Now hiding these people in the back closet won't work for the French anymore. They have to do some severe soul searching and I don't see the capability, or desire for them to do the serious business of integrating their population. How much of the European countries that have implemented similar policies and procedures.

To all the French and their like thinkers, this is what happens when you do not support the war on terrorism. War is ugly, but necessary in certain times. After all what would France be like today if we didn't save their bacon from Hitler?

Capability vs. The right.

2005-11-05T17:38:00.000-07:00

I think I have mentioned this topic here before, however, I think it needs to stated once again as it doesn't seem to be catching on as maybe it should. The issue is the capability to do things vs. the right to do things.

The three components of intellectual property, trademarks, patents and copyright limit the use of the property to those that own it, or those that have acquired a license from the owners to do what they require of the property.

We can do literally anything that our mind can conceive of. Barriers to entry in most business have been lowered to include a greater volume of competitors. The ability to explore any and all sciences is accelerating so fast that most have difficulty keeping up. Think of it and it can be done. But when the "thing" has been created, it retains its value through the various methods of securing intellectual property. The need then to have a license to use it comes into consideration.

If the capability of a company is such that they could do anything, that does not mean they have the right. And this is the main point of this entry. The focus on capability has been lost by companies acquiring the capability to produce more, however, this is on the basis of the assumption of securing the rights to do so firsthand.

Now with the move towards a more capable world companies are faced with a dilemma. They certainly have the capability, however sometimes, they don't own the rights to do what they do. In software we see Microsoft being challenged by any and all forms of open source. Why, primarily Microsoft never has had the rights to what they do. They've had the capability to sell Word, Excel and Office, however, do not own the exclusive rights of the product. Each competitive system, Linux, Open Office, MySQL etc, are open source and make the Microsoft value proposition very dim in direct comparison.

Dan Bricklan I believe is the property owner of the spreadsheet idea, however, he has done nothing to secure the rights to it and these rights have essentially fallen into the public domain. Other then that, Microsoft would have had to pay him for the creation of Excel and it is for this reason that Sun Microsystems has been able to successfully re-engineer Open Office.

The right to do something has the ability to provide the user with "monopoly" powers over the IP. Particularly in the area of copyright and patent, these monopolies provide their owners with the opportunity to make some significant input into the value of the products. The capability is lessened to the point where its value has been severely diminished.

What a coincidence.

2005-10-31T11:23:00.000-07:00

That the Canadian government's performance over the past ten years is about to have its real report card released in the Gomery commissions report tomorrow. The Prime Minister has stated that, with few details being noted by the public, and the seriousness of the content, that he will call an election within 30 days of the reports release.

Expect the report to show that the Liberal party was directly funded by the government to ensure that Quebec did not vote to leave the country. Can't think of too many things as undemocratic as the government funneling illegal government money to a party for the personal enjoyment of the chosen few. But then again that is the Canadian way.

Claims that Quebec voted to stay in Canada 10 years ago is the official premise as to why the government / party did what they did. That the hundreds of millions were a wise investment. This is irrespective of the fact that the government poured billions to support Quebec during the same time does not receive the accounting or justification that it should.

The irony is that the Quebec "separatists" have started to rattle their swords prior to the release of the Gomery commission report. Look for another round of the bull coming from the government / party in Canada.

More energy trivia.

2005-10-30T12:41:00.000-07:00

This week Exxon and Shell announced quarterly earnings of almost $20 billion between them. This is impressive and a testament to the prices that are being realized.

From my point of view the most important factor to consider is the fact that Shell also reported that production volumes were down 11% from the prior year.

Recall that Shell had the reserves issue of a few years ago where they were deemed to have over reported their oil and gas reserves. Now as most companies report that the production volumes are indeed declining, the "Peak" theorists will have further evidence of their theory.

I am curious as to what the Dr. Yergin et al arguments will be?

Energy fact that proves the Peak theory.

2005-10-29T20:08:00.000-06:00

Reading in the linked url that the reason for the Iraq production declines is due to the determination that at the Iraqi pre-war production rates, damage to the reserves was being done.

The American's, seeing the overproduction was not sustainable, reduced the production from these pre-war volumes to levels that would stabilize the reservoir and leave the formations undamaged.

If this is the case, the Simmons et al may be right in asserting that Saudi, or OPEC, are on the verge of some significant production declines.

Again, if the prices seem high today, just wait until this winter. Simmons is predicting $160 for oil and $40 for gas. I think that he is probably right.

Supply chain whiplash.

2005-10-20T11:20:00.000-06:00

Complex supply chains have a phenomenon known as "whiplash". This as the name suggests is an inability to mitigate the shortages and surpluses of the various components within the supply chain. As a result these shortages and surpluses' travel through the chain leading to other shortages and surpluses up and down the line.

Oil and gas now has been disrupted by the two hurricane's. Much has been said and done to offset the spiking of prices in these commodities. However, as these whiplash events continue to travel through the supply chain, problems will occur. Expect this to begin showing based on the timeline of the actual supply chain, 30, 60, 90 or 120 days from the hurricane.

What was an abundant supply of gasoline last week may lead to critical supply shortages the following week. Add to the mix the concern of the consumer, potential runs against the gas stations and cold weather, panic could help to define the upward price spikes of these commodities.

Yesterday we saw Refco declare bankruptcy. The covering of hedging positions by producers will now start in earnest and lead to "paper" demand that is above the actual inventory. This could get ugly, and I would suggest that Mr. Greenspan might have to begin bailing hard and fast to get through the last few months of his appointment.

Sources Procedures and Microeconomic Effects of Innovation

2005-09-24T13:40:00.000-06:00

Continuing on with the review of the material for this research.

Dr. Giovanni Dosi, Journal of Economic Literature.

III Innovation: The Characteristics of the Search Process.

B. Technological Paradigms and Patterns of Innovation: Technical Trajectories.

Jumping right back in, Dosi states "A crucial implication of the general paradigmatic form of technological knowledge is that innovative activities are strongly selective, finalized in quite precise directions, cumulative in the acquisition of problem-solving capabilities. Let us define as a technological trajectory the activity of technological process along the economic and technological trade-offs defined by a paradigm."

Its a good time to note the research of Dr. Jurgen Habermas and the effect his Theory of Communicative Action dove-tails with Dosi's discussion here. The next blog entry will be regarding Habermas theory specifically, and I will only briefly introduce the concept here and note the future discussion.

Theory of communicative action, from the point of view of this entry, and to tie in with Dosi's "trajectories" is. Research is driven by the need to support certain vested interests. For this limited point of view, application of this could be seen in the drug companies manufacturing and researching only items of long term commercial interest. That as time passes, medicine is focused on new and better chemicals to solve the medical problems of the world. This is because that is how the world has started to function.

To conduct research requires money from the drug companies who are interested in selling new drugs. Therefore all research soon becomes focused on the chemical solutions to human problems. I am not stating this is wrong, only describing an excellent analogy of how the theory operates. It is my opinion that much of the research in genetics is misguided from the point of view of the chemical angle, or perspective that genetics is looked through. I believe this thinking limits the opportunities of the medical community. There will be much more on this point as I am writing a book on this topic.

It could be argued that the discovery of new sources of energy has been constrained by the very low cost of fossil fuels. The opportunity to discover "better" sources of energy to power the world will have to wait until the financial resources and focus is on commercial levels of cost recovery of those technologies.

Dosi established many innovations are derived from the fields of science. Like energy, the use and innovation is ongoing and they in turn provide a further expansion of the underlying understanding and hence, the science itself. What we know today about fossil fuels is about twice what we knew 2 years ago. Dosi also notes that the trajectories for aircraft development have followed two definitive veins. One military in its application with the other in the commercial or airline field. The theory of both Habermas and Dosi can be seen in these medical, energy, and military examples.

The final point that Dosi notes in this section is that the innovations are sometimes sourced from differences in the underlying technologies. A good analogy for describing this would be when an assumption is altered, then the conclusion is also altered. The underlying technological cost or performance has a direct influence on the performance trajectory of the items being studied and therefore, are a ripe field for innovation.

The particular point of this entry is to point out the capacity of western societies is constrained by the organizational structure as noted before, preconceived notions and, the infrastructure used in our advanced economies. But specifically I want to highlight the general access to supercomputing power.

Supercomputing processing power has been around long enough to note that the term, use and understanding by the general public as "old" news. Much time and money has been spent building and supporting supercomputers that can now be replaced by the average desktop or notebook computer of today.

Back in 1983 the University of Calgary purchased a supercomputer for $300 million that processed 400 million instructions per second. A good Apple PowerBook probably has about 4 times the power of that 1983 supercomputer. So the general public perception is re-enforced through this generally available knowledge. Comparing a 1983 supercomputer to a desktop pc of the same vintage would be a better contrast to the differences in the capabilities. With x86 and 68k style processors of almost 1/4 of million transistors, the performance differential was significant, I'll be generous and say 2,000 fold. Where it was then possible to conduct operations in a day that would have taken over six years otherwise.

Today, the gap between the performance of the average desktop and a good supercomputer is much wider in terms of performance. At the extreme, IBM's Blue Gene, the # 1 supercomputer, can process 136 teraflop's in its current configuration. Or, approximately 136,000 fold. This is with the high probability of achieving a PetaFlop in the next few years which would make the factor grow to 1,000,000 fold as the expected speed of the average notebook / desktop is believed to be at or near the reasonable limits of probable performance.

Coincidentally the mathematics and sciences are expanding at a speed where the average desktop is constrained in solving fairly common problems. The ability to conduct research can be either the 3.88 years between a good notebook and 15 minutes on Blue Gene, or soon to be, 28 years for the notebook to conduct the same research that a PetaFlop can do in 15 minutes.

Costs associated with this type of performance is also down significantly. Sun Microsystems sells their grid computing services at $1 per processor per hour. The current Blue Gene leader is 65,000 processors and therefore, based on Sun pricing this type of capacity would cost the scientist $16,250. Not bad considering the time differential and certainly within the budgetary discretion of a good projects request for funding or grant.

The question then becomes, who benefits from the researcher conducting research that is of interest to him. Clearly this would help all of society, the scientific community and the people that the research would benefit. By removing the constraint that Habermas noted, the pursuit of the pure science could be achieved through the access of any researcher that can use the facilities of a powerful supercomputer.

Can we really wait the 3.88 years to find out? Are we able to assume that this type of infrastructure is beyond the commercial interests? Should the role of a government by redefined to include this type of service as a core to their innovative objectives and strategies? If not the government, then who? And as I asked here recently, who benefits from this type of investment in processing capacity?

Change at the World Bank.

2005-09-24T11:52:00.000-06:00

Click on the title to read the Wall Street Journal article on the ideas behind Paul Wolfowitz, the new president of the World Bank.

Bureaucracy has had the better part of the past century to rule the world. As much of this research is based on the ways and means that organizations can become more innovative, bureaucracies and hierarchies stand in the way. The Internet is showing the way with the open source software development model works, and works extremely well.

Bill Gates may think that most developers cut hair during the day, his favorite saying regarding open source, but I am certain that most would be snapped up in a minute by Microsoft, but then Darth Vader was unable to convince Luke to do the same. Google and IBM have both been actively poaching these developers. Anyway using this model of organizational structure, or self-organizing teams, is applicable to most situations in business.

That Giddens theory of Structuration defines the interrelationships between organizations, societies and people and the harmony in their change orientation and speed. Clearly organizational bureaucracies are an impediment to society and people and the innovative methods are constrained through these archaic organizational structures.

So why in the world would Paul Wolfowitz leave the Pentagon to become the president at the World Bank. Reading this article clearly shows that his thinking is aimed directly at new methods of third world development, the reduction of the banks bureaucracy and reform the ways that countries use the money borrowed from the bank. A long term project that he seems to be oriented and motivated for.

Canada's Federal Minister of Finance comments.

2005-09-23T14:56:00.000-06:00

The honorable Ralph Goodale has made negative comments regarding the "trust" method of organizational structure. He noted that the ability of a trust to innovate was too limited, and I think he would admit damaging to the Canadian economy. Therefore he has stopped the review of companies that were applying for trust status. Not a fan of the "trust" model, I have however supported the idea that companies limited exposure to debt and equity should be an area of more innovation.

To have additional means of structuring firms and dealing with the standard methods of management need to have greater number of tools and methods of financing. So from the point of view of more options, trusts are a good thing. But like all solutions that deal with the symptoms and not the root problem, Trusts have created significant problems due to the volume of companies that have altered their corporate structure to the Trust model.

A capitulation the long term vision of the company in order to generate maximum cash for, in some cases, monthly distribution to the shareholders has a role in many industries. It is however, not a good way to run an entire industry. To many companies have rushed into the trust model, primarily because they are unable to compete. Trusts have tax benefits that permit them to out bid the value of acquired assets.

Goodale needs to repeal the double taxation of Canadian companies. This is the root problem, and as he now realizes the need to deal with it explicitly is the only way to deal with it appropriately.

Source Procedures and Microeconomic Effects of Innovation.

2005-09-21T15:37:00.000-06:00

III Innovation, the Characteristics of the Search Process.

Dosi identifies many of the common characteristics of innovation and notes the critical importance of the economics of technological changes. (Section III will be split between three sections or blog entries.)

A. Innovation as Problem Solving: Technological Paradigms.

Solving problems is the root cause of innovation. This is inherent in most peoples understanding, but Dosi identifies and quantifies the difficulty in moving to an innovative mind-set in the following. "In other words, an innovative solution to a certain problem involves discovery and creation since no general algorithm can be derived from the information about the problem that generates its solution automatically." Or in other words, innovation is not as easy as it appears.

Dosi continues, "Certainly the solution of technological problems involves the use of information drawn from previous experience and formal knowledge, (example, from the natural sciences) however, it also involves specific and un-codified capabilities on the part of inventors."

Dosi notes the difficulties and complexity of the innovation process and the tie in to the scientific, mathematic and academic pursuits. Drawing on the tacit knowledge of many participants, these collaborations have the effect of releasing the creative process of innovating.

As I noted before, in Alberta, the governments current focus is on innovation. This province has a large installed base of "science" focused around the earth sciences and applied engineering disciplines. This is primarily due to the significant influence of the oil and gas industry as its core industry.

The Alberta governments focus to broaden the scope of innovation to include oil and gas, other industries and areas is consistent with the needs of a modern or innovative society.

So we have a province that is ripe for exploitation in terms of becoming an innovation based society. A strong financial infrastructure, a strong level of scientific knowledge, a focus or objective of more innovativeness, and the appropriate time frame for moving in this direction.

Google Wifi.

2005-09-21T12:50:00.000-06:00

Brilliant.

They have the resources to tie the wireless world under a free wifi service.

The only request I would have is to make that network IPv6.

The revolution is about to begin, long live Google.

A topic of discussion during this research.

2005-09-19T00:41:00.000-06:00

One topic of discussion that is the outcome of this analysis will be the effect that information technology and innovation has on the various roles of society, organizations and people.

As I've asked before in this blog, what effect did Henry Ford have on society, organizations and people. Clearly the type of worker that Ford employed after the invention of the assembly line was fundamentally different from the worker that was employed prior to Ford's invention. The role of the organization was changed with the explicit and radical thinking that included paying his workers better wages, because it was in Ford's best interest as it directly affected the number of people that were capable of purchasing a car. Remarkably, it also appears to have sponsored the organization of labor unions that appeared more about power then worker's rights. This also took the better part of the last century to unfold.

What kind of worker is needed in this networked, virtual world of information technology and innovation. Ideas are not 9 to 5 and what more is there, other then the pursuit of ideas, ultimately? Just as Ford today is challenged by its competitors effective use of the assembly line, and is in jeopardy of facing its own demise, what roles need to change, how do people act and react?

I wanted to note that the traditional roles are changing overall and discuss these changes broadly over the course of this blogs research project. Today I want to ask what the role of governments are in the future, and what changes can be prepared for today.

Regulation and market access are tools that have provided excellent monitoring and control, particularly from the western point of view of democracy. However, are these changing? What use will there be in the future where the speed of change is so disruptive and destructive to established markets and new ones exist in zero time.

Google is an $84 Billion, 8 year old company that has a power and influence that is greater then any company before it. It has a mission statement that is simply, "Do no Evil". What government has the authority to control such a large and powerful force, the U.S., China, the U.N.? Truly we live by the collective will of the people that use the tools provided. No one can directly control Google or would generate any benefit if they could. It is there for all to use to the best of their ability.

So what can a government do in an uncontrollable world where the competition is less company vs. company, but country vs. country. Where the tools of commerce and finance are global and available to everyone, despite their political affiliation, corporate involvement or philosophical bent. Is this within the mind-set of most governments, or are they continuing to borrow money to fund past promises that continue to escalate in cost and dependency by its citizens. What infrastructure are necessary to be provided. Does the traditional communication and transportation continue to be defined in the traditional fashion?

If the technology vision I noted here recently was implemented today. (With the only impediment being the IPv6 roll out.) A person would have tools to monitor and control any device throughout the world. Who will be the wiser, who will be authorized to do something about it. If my domain of influence extends beyond the physical world that I occupy, to include the virtual world that may exist throughout the globe, and this virtual existence is available to anyone who can solve the complex mathematical, genetic or other science, what would the role of government be?

Thankfully I live in Alberta. A province in a heavily established democracy, that has a massive budgetary surplus, one of the highest GNP's per capita, and a stated goal to facilitate innovation. Instead of concerning ourselves with the methods and financing of yesterday's initiatives, this government has a clear focus on the future and has adopted the innovative means to acquire the right posture for the future.

So what should the Alberta government provide its citizens. Infrastructure will continue to be key services, however, not in the traditional sense. The communications are different. The transportation continues to be important and energy has taken on a much larger role in the lives of progressive democracies. So what additional roles does the government have to undertake?

Some of the ideas that need to be discussed fall within these and include access to raw computing power, wireless networks and storage. Where will the math geniuses solve those more advanced math problems. Supercomputing is not generally available to everyone, yet should it be? When a math problems solution is in need of half a petaflop and 80 Gb of Ram, where will the scientist go? Does the mathematician continue to drive to work in a 9 to 5 manner, or solve it online through a public facility at 2:00 am? Who benefits if the scientist is able to get his answer in 15 minutes, vs. 15 years?

This kind of debate will be sponsored through this blog through the next year. As this is undetermined at this time, it is necessary to think in the context of Giddens and Orlikowski's structuration theory and model. Clearly in this example the mathematician has changed, his organization and society have also changed.

We need to answer how these changes to government will occur without the systemic fallout noted in Giddens structuration theory. Now avoidance of failure on a large scale must certainly fall under the role of government?

Sources Procedures and Microeconomic Effects of Innovation

2005-09-17T22:06:00.000-06:00

Dr. Giovanni Dosi, Journal of Economic Literature.

Part II, Searching for innovations - The general patterns.

Dosi establishes through various statistics the breakdown of the various expenditures incurred in research, applied research and development. These statistics are also broken down between the government, industry, academic research and non-profit institutions.

Nothing of interest jumps out of these statistics other then the annual expenditures seem to be fairly constant over time. They also appear to be sizeably influenced by the American military and space programs. As these two engines of research make a clear demarcation from what the U.S. spends and the other countries.

The consistency of the expenditures from year to year seem to reflect that the amount of research and development spending is constrained by the quality and quantity of the research industry.

Dosi goes on to note that there are undocumented expenditures incurred in the innovative process of "learning by doing, and learning by using". These are not quantifiable or measurable as they are incurred as required and may be directly associated with the culture of the country and the value assigned to research by the country of origin.

I will however assert that the time frame of this research was 1988 and much has changed since that time. And particularly the Java programming language has now celebrated its 10th year. As noted here in the past week this object based, typed language is a key attribute of the vision this analysis is being viewed through. Another not discussed point in the vision, but tacitly stated, is that of Java, or object based inheritance and therefore re-use.

As a developer the ability to build off the works of others is one of the reasons for the success of the language. A massive level of infrastructure is available to the developer and the more time spent researching the availability of capability, and the less time spent actually writing code is at a cross roads. If more then half of the time that a developer is spent reviewing code that was written by, in almost all cases, very smart people, the extension to the "Learning by doing and Learning by using" is being augmented by "Learning by leveraging".

That this is happening in a time where the methods of doing things is being questioned, and alternative structures are providing alternate ways of working more efficiently and effectively. One would only assume that these skills of Java Programming will become the necessary tools of the average worker in 10 years. Without these skills, the worker would be limited to the amount of efforts that they can produce in a "manual" environment.

It would be just as fool hardy for someone to remain employed today by using 14 column paper today. Spreadsheets are too powerful to offer any kind of reasonable alternative methods. These same attitude and questions are going to be applied to the same worker when the cumulative effect of all the Java developments provide the "Learning by leveraging" capabilities noted here.

Where we are.

2005-09-17T19:07:00.000-06:00

Just wanted to summarize the past few blog entries. Their is an overall theme that has been defined in this blog in the last few days. (Innovations, their impact, technology, software and oil and gas.) I have written enough major articles and research to know that the process of writing reveals aspects that the author did not know he was saying in his writing until it is complete. I don't know where the result of this public verbiage is heading too, however, I know that their is something of real interest and it needs to be "found" or identified through the process of this public dissertation.

Again I would enjoy any reader to join me in this process as I think their is much to be accomplished in the next year or so.

First things first, I want to focus on some "public" research of the methods and procedures of innovation. And particularly extend the research to current documents of Dr. Giovanni Dosi. I also want to review this in light of the innovations that are occurring in oil and gas, and in the software industries and how these are linked.

Additional research is being conducted from a Dr. Anthony Giddens Structuration theory and Dr. Wanda Orlikowski's model of structuration point of view. These are important in the context of the changes that may occur and their particular impact on society, organizations and people.

This overall discussion needs to be put in a different type of context. If the user is expected to be the driving force of the innovations, then we will be stuck in a limited range of opportunity. However, the limits of this innovative time is in the hands of the developer and therefore can't be defined until fully implemented. If companies such as HP, Dell and IBM to a lesser extent, are waiting for their clients to call with the new and innovative technologies, they will be sitting by the phone for a long time.

Companies such as Apple and Sun understand the markets that are of real value, the iPods and x86 server markets are under innovated because the limited user imagination has been the driving force behind most of their competitors offerings. Companies such as Apple and Sun employ very smart people that will lead the innovations with new and radical products that most don't initially understand.

What in essence I am saying is that the innovative mind-set is not something that can be controlled or managed. The innovators are unconstrained in their approach to new products and services. Speed is the other aspect of this infrastructure that is of interest. The time necessary to do something is limited to the speed of electricity and the chemical reactions in ones brain. Fascinating times and place to be living today.

Scary statistic.

2005-09-17T14:20:00.000-06:00

Especially for those that do not fully comprehend the significance of the Sun Microsystems announcement that there are approximately 2.5 billion Java enabled devices in the world.

This is an infrastructure that is surprisingly large. When the vision I have about where technology is heading, meets this type of infrastructure, change is inevitable.

How I see things changing from here has never been published before, and here it is now.

Simply the Java programming language is really quite something. The language has some inherent qualities that make it such a good language and these qualities are as follows. In no particular order Java is a programming language with a strong security model, object based, and typed language. The combination of these creates a situation that Java can be modeled to replicate any 'object' or 'type' of object in the real world. Enabling the programmer to emulate the object in real time enables monitoring and control to the developer / user.

The second aspect of this is Wi-Max. Wireless will sponsor it's own revolution and when access is literally virtual to any device, this will change many things.

Thirdly we are now at the beginning of a new Internet protocol that is profound in its primary capability. Addressing 2 to the power of 128 in IPv6 vs the current IPv4 capability of 2 to the power of 32 enables the worlds devices to be accessed through permanent static Internet addresses. What you now need a server to provide will soon be provided to each and every Java enabled device in the world.

Remember the vision is formed around the components of this vision. Even though each component provides significant impact on its own, the cumulative or combined impact is the real story.

Fourth we have a new programming paradigm being implemented in Java. Asynchronous communications. The real world has always had a nasty habit of interrupting the sequence of events that the systems were attempting to manage. Unless the world behaved in the same manner as was expected, the value of the technology would fail its users. Asynchronous Process Management can be implemented into the Java programming model and as a result deal with the manner in which Murphy has written his laws.

What you have is a confluence of events that are moving to make anything and everything, virtual or real, monitor-able and controllable. Anyone who understands what can be done will be able to do so relatively easy. This power and capability should not be underestimated.

The key attribute here is the ability to monitor and control your world, might I add in an automated manner. Opening up significant levels of productivity, capability, and speed to anyone and everyone who can appreciate this.

Recall that Microsoft's human interface "Bob" never made it out to see the light of day. That is because the complexity in IT is its power. The finite level of control is what and where the value is. Therefore I see the divisions between those that do the work that make the computers do their work will be separate from those individuals that do the work that the computers can't do, or in other words manual labor. These divisions are being formed now so one should choose the right side of the fence to be on now. Recall that the Chinese and India are more interested in the work that computers can do.

This has been received by my audience as more or less the equivalent of Y2K revisited. For the record anyone selling Y2K solutions didn't and never will understand technology. If a user seeks comfort in the effect of the Y2K fiasco as being representative of the software community, they are very wrong. Threats that one should guard against this vision coming real without your involvement are summarily ignored. So don't say that you were not aware or warned of the impact of this vision becoming reality, and according to Sun, yesterday.

Framing the discussion further.

2005-09-16T14:55:00.000-06:00

In addition to the discussion regarding Dr. Giovanni Dosi. I am also going to discuss the point in time, or the context of when, that the industries we are applying Dosi's work to, those being oil and gas, and software, with the theory and application of Dr. Anthony Giddens Theory of Structuration and Dr. Wanda Orlikowski's Model of Structuration.

Structuration was put forward by Dr. Giddens in 1984 and is simply stated that society, organizations and people move together in lockstep. Distortions in the pace of change experienced by one group need to be mirrored by the other two groups. Simply as society moves so do its people and organizations, and if not failure occurs.

Dr. Orlikowski's work has been to extend the theory of structuration by noting that technology, and particularly information technology, define much of the structure of society. That this is a recursive relationship in defining the components within structuration theory. With the model of structuration having four specific components.

1) There is ongoing maintenance and adaptation of technology and "human action constitutes technology through using it".

2) "Technology is the medium of human action and it conditions social practice by both facilitating and constraining it."

3) "Institutional properties influence humans in their interaction with technology"

4) "Interaction with technology influences the institutional property of an organization, and this influence is more likely to be reinforcing rather that a transforming one."

To relate and tie this discussion in with the implications that are noted during the Dosi review will be the objective. The timing of this discussion is attempting to relate the implications that I see that many are or will be seeing during the near future. A future in which I anticipate turbulent economic times and disruption of lives due to the implications of the innovations in the two industries being studied.

Sources Procedures and Microeconomic Effects of Innovation

2005-09-16T00:51:00.000-06:00

Part I, Introduction

This articles research is comprehensive in its scope and quality. Dosi lays a lot of preliminary groundwork through the works of others and takes the science of innovation much further. Significantly further then I think even he set out to undertake. Much of the discussion in this blog will center around the pertinent areas of software development and the oil and gas industries. These being two industries that I believe are involved in, and will be involved in the processes of innovation to a material extent.

Starting his discussion Dosi dives in and speaks to the motivation that drives the innovative process within organizations. Noting that much of the motivation falls to that one intangible in business, that being a "belief" that the "existence of some sort of yet unexploited scientific and technical opportunities provide economic value in excess of its costs.

Setting out to establish some broad objectives, Dosi then points to the main aim of this work as;

1) Identify the main characteristics of the innovation process.

2) Identify the factors that are conducive or hinder the development of new processes of production and new products.

3) Identify the processes that determine the selection of particular innovation and the effect on industrial structures.

Lofty objectives that set the stage for the scope of this seminal piece.

Application of these principles to the two noted industries that are of my particular interest, we can see that the software industry is going through a period of massive change and innovation, primarily driven by the two structural changes of the open source business model and free software development tools. What is 'possible' lays the foundation of 'what can be innovated'. A phenomenon that I would like to refer to as the first revolution of intellectual thought. Where the imagination of the user is limited in its value unless they fully comprehend the scope and application of the technology that is available today. In other words, the user understands how the technologies capability can be used to provide incremental improvements in the range of 10 - 20 percent, vs the technology when used in an unconstrained manner can provide the quantum increase in capability.

The oil and gas industry on the other hand is currently being driven to innovation through the capacity constraints of the industry, and is in contrast to the sources of energy demand. Much of the industry has been occupied with a banking mindset of optimizing production and providing reasonable returns. I am suggesting that the need for these types of oil and gas concerns is expiring and an innovative mindset is required to build off the sciences of applied engineering and geology.

So if we were to identify the main characteristics, the factors that are conducive or hinder innovation and thirdly the processes that determine the selection of innovation and its impact on industrial structure we begin to see the value that Dosi's work has the potential of achieving.

Dosi defines two key issues that also provide evidence of the scope of this document that helps to define it as a landmark piece. The issues are;

1) "The characterization, in general, of the innovative process."

2) "The interpretation of the factors that account for observed differences in the modes of innovative search and the rates of innovation between different sectors and firms, and over time."

Dosi has therefore framed the scope of this research and clearly has undertaken a large project. However, as he is ultimately successful, the issues and outcomes that he is seeking have already framed his research and lead in my opinion to the significance of this research.

Innovation.

2005-09-15T16:35:00.000-06:00

The focus of this blog has been to discuss the area of innovation, particularly in the software and oil and gas industries. I wrote my thesis on the basis of the published works that Dr. Giovanni Dosi of Italy has written. If you have a chance to pick up these works I highly recommend them as I consider Dosi as the leading researcher in the feild of innovation.

I wanted to review much of the works that Dosi has produced in the past decades. Comprehensive in nature and thorough, Dr. Dosi's research is without equal in my opinion, and hence difficult to plow through. As a result of the scope of his works, the next year will have a theme in this blog dedicated to this review. I would also like to engage in some discussion of these principles and would encourage comments and communications.

The first article that Dosi wrote was in 1982. I think that his seminal works began in 1988 with "Sources Procedures and Microeconomic Effects of Innovation" Journal of Economic Literature which will be the first document I review in this blog.

Hope that you enjoy it as much as I do and find the scope and quality as valuable as I have.

The first thing I want to post is Dr. Dosi's CV for future reference. (Click on the title to his website)

Koffi's got to go.

2005-09-09T10:49:00.000-06:00

Looks to me that the time remaining for Secretary General Koffi Annan is minimal. The Volker report is an artful piece of work of systemically breaking down the oil for food program and extrapolating it to the U.N.'s method of operations.

The most surprising aspect of the report is the stark nature of the conclusions. At one point indicating that Annan claimed to have saved Iraqi's from starving, which is true. However, the money, over 100 billion U.S. was controlled by Saddam Hussein and directed towards his political operatives. So yes, Oil for Food did save those from starving, however, it directly supported a corrupt regime that starved it's people.

Another stark conclusion is that the benefactors that Saddam supported with the oil for food money was China, France and Russia. Noting that these are the security council members had worked to stop the U.S. from removing Saddam. Serious stuff.

If this is the method of operations of the U.N. we can certainly live with out the secretary general and the institution. I think it should now be clear why Ambassador Bolton is there.

Our way of life.

2005-09-03T10:40:00.001-06:00

The destruction of New Orleans is a tragic and difficult problem for those that are directly affected by the hurricanes. The issues for them will soon be solved and I hope that much of their way of life can be recovered.

Those that are indirectly affected are throughout North America, and their way of life may have altered significantly for a long time. I am concerned that the oil and gas companies are unable to grasp the scope of the problem that they are faced with. I find that many are now beginning to question the assumptions that they have used in preparing their budgets and asking what validity was used to base those assumptions. In retrospect these assumptions are continuing to surprise in that they are so fundamentally wrong. Watch for this trend and sea change in the opinion leaders in the oil and gas industry.

Secondly the petroleum volumes that were produced in the Gulf of Mexico and the volumes that were imported and channeled through the port of New Orleans are now for all intents and purposes, shut down. An optimistic point of view would be that the people will be able to resume operations within a few months and all will be well. I think that, unfortunately, before the oil and gas operations resume in the Gulf, the opportunity for all who think that oil and gas are their god given right, should begin to appreciate the value and importance of energy to their way of life.

Specifically without oil and gas, North America would starve to death in a matter of months. Serious delusions or valid analysis? That will be for the reader to determine. But when the crops wrought in the field because the farmer can not operate his machinery, when the trucks to haul the goods to market are unable to do so, when those that need the food can not make it to the crops, one sees in the panic and lawlessness of New Orleans what really happens when people begin to become hungry and this phenomenon takes hold.

We have a serious problem on this continent. It is time to realize this before it is too late. We all need to begin to prioritize our way of life by adjusting our attitudes and behaviors accordingly. Our choices are becoming more and more obvious in New Orleans, lets hope it's contained there.

Internet growth slows?

2005-09-02T14:16:00.000-06:00

The statistics supporting the claim that the Internet growth rate has slowed from an annual pace of 100% to 50% in the 2005 year to date. As we know, statistics are a function of the representation of facts. This on the surface, is validity to many that the Internet hey-days have past. My opinion would be that I don't think there could be anything further from the truth.

I am going to assert a "Google bias" into these statistics. That if the statistics were recalculated based on consideration of the bias' assumption, Internet use is accelerating.

The "Google bias" is defined as the textual basis of their offering. Simply limiting their offering to a textual basis represents much of the revolutionary nature of their services. No photo's, videos or other broadband devouring activities for Google, everything being textual allows them to reduce their comparative costs and increase the speed of their services. The popularity of Google in the past year has brought the majority of the consumers with the better textual based services.

This in turn having created the illusion that fewer people were using the Internet then actually were. I think that during the 2006 year many will find it surprising that the Internet growth has resumed its pre 2005 growth pace and a satisfaction that their explicit reduction of the medium was un-justified and sadly for them, incorrect.

Energy choices, a serious business.

2005-08-31T17:18:00.000-06:00

The link provided is to a website that deals in used forklifts. The one specified in the picture is assumed to have around 100 horse power. The choices in powering the forklift is the point of discussion of this blog.

Our first issue is the ability to replace gas / diesel in this vehicle to power it for the 8 hour shift. Let's also assume that it will consume 15 gallons of gasoline during an 8 hour shift, note that it is ready it willing to work for the entire 24 hours without complaints.

The fuel costs for a shift would cost approximately $45 / day to fuel based on the prices noted in the U.S. today. Now the ability to replace this with a hydrogen fuel cell, often touted as the natural progression of our advanced society, does not currently exist, nor would the internal combustion engine be able to deal with that fuel source. It is for this latter reason that we will assume that the alternative of using coal or wood will not to power the forklifts engine.

The most natural alternative would be to use good old elbow grease. So @ 100 horse power this unit could approximate the efforts of 300 men on the basis of each man able to sustain 500 watts of output for the 8 hour shift. So this alternative is now starting to become viable / doable and we could easily let them settle for their ($45 / 300 man days) = $0.15 each of alternatvie energy pay.

The importance of this analysis is its validity. Their is no replacement engines, no replacement energy source to provide the value that a 100 horse power gas powered forklift could provide during each 8 hour shift.

We need to take this small example and place it into the critical context of why energy use is so important. Farmers are systemically high users of gas and diesel, what are their opportunities or alternatives to power the combine or tractor? The regression to a manual sickle is not something that is on offer as their probably is not enough people to make a harvest necessary to continue to feed the world. Certainly the oxen skills of past are in high demand.

We are dependent on energy to this extent in our lives and we have no alternatives. We are committed to the internal combustion engine and its "installed base" of users for at least the next 10 years, probably 100. It's time to realize that the value of a gallon of gas is far in excess of the local Starbuck's coffee and deal more constructively with these issues. As the press says the energy costs take spending power away from the consumer. Without energy costs, the consumer doesn't exist.

If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine...

2005-08-29T19:19:00.000-06:00

I pulled this off the Silicon Valley dot com website. Click on the title to the site.

Thought that these were words to live by.

I am what I am.

2005-08-28T22:31:00.000-06:00

I believe that Popeye was the one to first mention this statement. This came to mind when Google sent me to the "how to" website with the quote "How to spot a Virgo". Click on the title for the specific article.

Reading this, as a Virgo, it seems frighteningly close to a good definition of me.

The fall of the Berlin Wall.

2005-08-28T17:40:00.000-06:00

Read an article that suggested that the fall of the Berlin wall was the critical event that released the current demand for energy. That was 1989 and the world consisted of only 25% of the worlds population under free and democratic societies. Only 1/4 of the worlds population actively consuming in the fashion that is now known the world over today.

This makes good sense to me and focuses the issue of energy on the right component. The supply. We need to check the use of energy that can be better managed and reduced. And this applies throughout the supply chain.

My vote is for the SegWay human transporter to begin taking a greater role in our lives. At $0.25 / charge and 20 km range it seems that lugging two ton's to the grocery store might fall under the category of areas where cutbacks could be made.

The SegWay is only one type of consumer based innovation. I am certain that in ten years we will look back at this time and laugh at how wasteful we were.

Service Oriented Architecture.

2005-08-20T21:59:00.000-06:00

Service Oriented Architectures (SOA's) are all the rage in the technology community. Java Enterprise Edition, Grids, yada yada. Industry (consisting of Canadian oil and gas companies which is my myopic focus due to my location) should realize the value of these and begin evaluating the technology as soon as possible. The focus on their own IT shops is failing and needs to be addressed as the worm writers have taken the upper hand.

The best descriptions of SOA's is they provide a comprehensive infrastructure for Enterprise Resource Planning and Enterprise Information Architectures. This infrastructure is provided for partner, vendor and customer interactions between systems to facilitate innovation, rapid transactions and speed with low admin costs. Doable and not just the latest buzz word being hoisted on a glazed over business community.

There is a belief that the maturation of technology as an industry has occurred. This is best represented in the compelling argument put forward by Jonathan Schwartz of Sun as a "Commodity" business. Google to read his blog entry on the "participation age".

SOA's most importantly offer the opportunity for companies to offload or out-source the critical administration functions and purchase them from the Web Service (or SOA) provider. If I can process a transaction for $2 the compelling need to have the service on an as used basis, without the overhead of any IT department is the key point of this blog entry. A commodity, just as Schwartz suggested.

Maybe its just me, but Schwartz might be right. The more I think about these SOA's the more I begin to think that the pioneering of the SOA marketplace, or dare I say Industry is forming. The three key components of these SOA's are;

- Industries such as oil and gas have better things to be doing then tinkering with Windows for the thousands of employees they have. In oil and gas the science of geology and engineering are demanding, accelerating, and becoming critically important to the global marketplace. Is it too much to ask these people to debate the attributes of Asynchronous Process Management? The answer is yes, that time has passed, and all industries need to focus on their product quality and customers.

- A commodity based business as Schwartz defines it is possibly where the traditional information technology business is going. These are providing a capability and capacity to conduct greater and greater levels of processing and sophistication. Again, like the other industries, these have a lot to do. From processors, databases, Java, Networks, yada yada. Asking them to fully comprehend the science and engineering issues of oil and gas, NASA or the Jet Propulsion Lab is stretching it as well.

- SOA providers are unique and seperate from the computer and other more traditional business. The need to understand the traditional business at hands need and provide the type of offerings that are possible through the computer industries commodity offerings.

Obviously there has been a traditionally large group of companies that called themselves technology partners, value added resellers and independent software vendors. This "cottage industry" approach passed in 2000 and no one has yet bothered to tell them or turn out the lights. These have been replaced by the likes of the relics of SAP, Oracle as it attempts to reconfigure itself in this new industry, and IBM who have done much the same since. The winners and losers of this new industry have not been determined yet.

Much of the vision of technologies use today by the general user community is jaded by the dot com meltdown and lack of understanding and / or imagination. The future is not defined and will be significantly different then most believe.

A new industry would need some basis to rely on to have a sustainable competitive advantage. They would need to be able to continue to develop this competitive advantage and build these services as needed. Intellectual property is the means and basis of this SOA's competitive advantage. Through strategic use of Trademarks and Copyrights (and occasionally through patents), to provide the cement to base this new industry and make it real.

The new black plague

2005-08-19T11:12:00.000-06:00

Virus' again and the implications of the latest Windoze group of security issues. Much of the capability of a developer has been documented in this blog regarding the free tools and their impact. In summary, developers now have the best tools, for free, that they could have ever desired. The impact of these will become evident as the speed and capability of individual developers and particularly the open source community complete the work that they have in front of them. Brilliant stuff, a phenomenon never seen before. However we appear to have to deal with the virus writers and those that continue to choose Windows, first.

Some details of the current group of viruses reflect the speed of their capability has improved as well. Instead of taking 200 days to complete the code and release, these people are able to exploit a Windows weakness within 3 days of Microsoft posting the patch, and hence exposing the inherent weakness. It has traditionally taken companies 14 days on average to evaluate the Windows patches, and therefore in most systems, the virus may be active prior to the Windows patch. Making it look like Microsoft has damaged their system. The natural response to this is to cease Microsoft patches and leave the system as is.

I don't know which is worse. Having the virus or leaving yourself exposed. Either way, the ability of industry to meet the demands of this problem are taxing productivity, and instead of solving the problem, selecting the lesser of two evils.

Architecture and worms.

2005-08-17T16:04:00.000-06:00

Windoze is being hit by another serious security issue. Have always used Macs, as they are the only machine that seems to be able to keep up. My normal use on a PC seems to cause systemic failures within one hour of using them. The method of my use seems to push them outside of their comfort level.

Nonetheless I hear that the reason for the worms is the volume of Windoze installed base. I disagree, the architecture is faulty. If you made a 100 story building out of wood you would have similar problems maintaining it due to the architecture and materials that would have been used. If you make a 100 story building out of steel and concrete, you have substantially less issue with the materials and architecture. This is a good analogy of why Windoze can't change and the Mac / Unix remain the way they are.

The fact that a virus writer has not substantially invaded the Unix environment is because they can't. Worming your way into concrete and steel would be a good extension of the above analogy.

It is also important to realize the virus writers are interested in fame and notoriety. The first to penetrate the Mac would be held out as a hero and would certainly make the news. The fact that this has not happened is, I am certain, due to the architecture, not the lack of trying.

This also raises the point regarding the symbiotic relationship that Microsoft has with recent high school graduates. Recommend Microsoft products and I'll give you a lifetime of employment, says Bill Gates. I will never understand the time and effort to keep a Windoze machine virus free and running.

Iran

2005-08-11T10:58:00.000-06:00

Iran has broken the International Atomic Energy IAEC seals and it is clearly evident that Iran is not going to bow to international pressures. The current statement by the negotiator representing Iran is summarized by him as a "Big Big mistake" to impose sanctions.

Is Iran operating alone? Are there other Arab nations that will impose voluntary sanctions on their oil production? Is this the Arab world standing up and saying that they desire to be treated the same as what they perceive as the standard applied to the west? I am not suggesting that their is difference, only a perception.

Comments such as the Iranians reflect that their are bigger issues in play then just the production from Iran.

2005, the year we loose the lead?

2005-08-04T21:31:00.000-06:00

I sense that the emphasis on technology is lost on those that have not seen the opportunity and role of the Internet in today's society. Clicking on the title (Subscription required) of this blog will take you to New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman's article. Friedmans recent book is "The World is Flat".

Friedman is suggesting that the political party that can capture the value of the current technology can capture the political landscape of the United States. Citing FDR's use of radio, Kennedy's use of television and recently Karl Roves use of the Internet to capture an innovative technology for political purposes.

The larger issue is that it appears that the U.S. is beginning to see and understand the Internet opportunities as clearly as their competitors did several years ago.

Ambassador Bolton

2005-08-02T00:02:00.000-06:00

I find it interesting that President Bush has installed John Bolton as the Ambassador to the United Nations. Is it that the U.S. feels the need to have someone that can deal with the Iranian situation I mentioned?

Kimi Raikkonen, World Champion

2005-08-01T10:00:00.000-06:00

Time to declare the world driving champion. Kimi Raikkonen has some work to do, however, 26 points and 6 races remaining would traditionally be difficult, but Kimi will win the title in 2005.

Alonso, the leader in this seasons points race, has declared that both he and his team are sitting on their lead. Feeling their advantage is enough to maintain their lead through the rest of the season. Wrong.

Although no one would state this, Alonso is expressing it by his actions. You can never let up and cruise to the finish as a driver or competitor in the highest levels of sports or business.

Alonso has let up his performance this past weekend, and this performance level will be systemic through the rest of this season and Raikkonen is taking full advantage of it. The only means to stir the championship drive in Alonso will be the fear of losing. By the time this is realized it is always to late.

Energy policy.

2005-07-31T16:01:00.000-06:00

This week saw the U.S. pass a bill to deal with the level and quality of fuel their economy consumes. This is a positive step, however, to little and far too late as the world market will now embark on the quick move to the energy prices that I noted earlier. These were $120 for oil, and $15 for natural gas. (only a doubling at this point.) Note this also denotes that their has been a re-pricing of natural gas to 1/8 of the price of a barrel of oil. A movement from the 6 times used through out the 1990's.

The following scenario may come about. The Iranians have now had their "election" and the current government announced they are proceeding with uranium enrichment due to the British and France's inability to provide them with the offer on Iran's timetable.

I am assuming that the bi-lateral negotiations with North Korea may have solidified in Iran's mind that they need nuclear bombs to enable and enhance their negotiating power with the rest of the world.

This scenario will invoke the U.N. to vote on sanctioning Iran until they comply with the non-nuclear proliferation treaty. Sanctions will affect the 5 million barrels of oil per day that Iran produces, and will attempt to remove the production from the marketplace.

This scenario may precipitate the world price of oil to exceed even my noted price estimates. However, I don't think the sanctions will be passed. China would be as detrimentally affected as the Americans, and as a result, China would veto the U.N. resolution. Rendering the sanctions un-enforceable and securing Iran's oil production to themselves exclusively.

The spike in prices would create a disparity in energy pricing between the West's and China's positions. The U.S. will certainly ensure that no company or individual purchases any energy from the Iranians and as such effectively remove 5 million barrels of oil per day from their available market. The Chinese will in turn secure the Iranian oil for their own purposes and use this cheaper or "sanctioned energy.

Is China capable of such a maneuver? I think they are. They have consistently ignored the politics and market dynamics in areas such as the Sudan and Nigeria and struck agreements that provide these countries with additional resource revenues based on their needs. These agreements, unlike those of the west, do not contain any human rights or other provisions.

China and its marketplace would need to be put into the context of a rogue nation and an embargo would ensue as well. This issue is interesting due to the dynamics and it will be interesting to see how it plays out. And it will play out. The ability to avoid this issue and have Iran comply has passed and the moral high ground of the future is at stake. Certainly the need to keep your gas tank filled and rationing of all energy will become a key component of pricing and demand for energy here in North America. Lets hope we can keep these prices at the level that I've predicted.

The Internet.

2005-07-27T23:22:00.000-06:00

I've read a number of good articles regarding the first 10 years of the Internet. This wired.com article seems to me to capture much of it's potential. (click on the title.)

Asking where will be in ten years as a result of these remarkable technologies is impossible to know. However, based on where we are and what we can do, it has to be good.

Software effects - the pending housing bubble collapse

2005-07-24T22:16:00.000-06:00

A couple of interesting points I noted this week that when combined make a lot of sense to me.

Ray Lane speaking at the Always On conference noted that there are only 3 software companies that make any money, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP. He noted that most of the other software companies earned profits on services oriented to the software. Ray Lane, former president of Oracle also stated that the software development business models of 10 years ago are inappropriate for the software businesses of today. Newer models and methods are revolutionizing a rather archaic business, that being the software development industry.

Another separate discussion was of the state of affairs in the software business today. Citing the newer methods of open source, and contrasting them with the capacity for the "older" software development models to change.

The lack of change capability was attributable to the software developers that appear to have been locked into a Cobol age. The discussion I read documented the open source developers frustration with the Cobol developers inability to understand or consider the more modern ways. That this lack of developer change capability was reflected in the internal software department and business models of the companies that the developers were employed by. Or in other words the software functioned, as did the IT departments that supported them, and their businesses reported profits. But under the facade was garbage in, garbage out and no one seemed to care.

It was also noted in this latter discussion that the state of software affairs in the banking business might be attributable to the housing bubble. That is, bad software was the only justification supporting many of the decisions to loan money for housing.

Technology can not be killed.

2005-07-07T00:04:00.000-06:00

Again my apologies for not properly referencing these posts. The quotation was stated as "Technology can not be killed, only deferred."

Words to live by today as IBM has released their Workplace toolset. I have written that these tools are powerful and need to be adopted by organizations in order to mitigate the fallout and negative attributes of the potential of these technologies.

Ideas that support technology, once stated, can not be returned to the bottle of which they came from. Albert Einstein lived with the atomic bomb as a natural result of his theories, much of the world changed as a result. This is progress.

I don't want to relate the Workplace toolset with technologies from Einstein, however, the analogy is strong. Businesses will be challenged through the natural ability of teams to form and conduct their operations virtually, asynchronously and thoroughly, better then can be conducted otherwise. To defer IBM's Workplace technology helps to secure its foothold in the organizations that need it for the purpose it was designed for. That the refusal to accept it is the precursor to its unknowing, unauthorized and hence, more dangerous use.

Atomic energy reflects all that is good about science and all that is bad about humans. This point is the key attribute of the analogy between Atomic energy and IBM's Workplace, and what I think needs to be stated.

The Internet, like Atomic energy, reflects a new medium, science and value system. Much of these technologies are not fully understood or implemented when they are released, and we are only starting down the road of what is possible. I would like to think that the IBM Workplace product suite is the most advanced thinking and implementation of the Internet to date.

The manner that society will be changed has not been defined and the changes are only beginning. I assume that IBM realizes that change can not be made from within the organizations, and needs to be provoked from outside. Hence Workplace's release in the hands of developers. This product release provides the ability to create revolutionary societal changes. Changes that are not only possible, but will be made. The organizational model of industry and business will not survive in their current iterations and resisting the changes has been successful to this point, however, the fallout of not acting responsibly will now begin.

These change based societal attributes are reflected in the open source movement. A movement which has characteristics that are a phenomenon never seen before. IBM has captured these phenomenon within their toolset and are releasing them to an uninterested business community. However one attribute that can not be controlled by the organizations is the wildly interested developer community.

The point of this is that Oracle and IBM are learning that publishing the source code of these tools does not necessarily need to be done. By distributing binaries of their tools to the developer community, use by those developers is guaranteed. That the revenue from developers drops, however, it is significantly less then one would think. Charging the developers for the tools to do their jobs does not provide any upside for the likes of Oracle, IBM, Sun or Apple. A lesson that all of them have now learned well.

The round about point of this is that the development world is being inundated with quality tools that can revolutionize any and all existing systems. SAP and the like will soon be faced with declining sales as corporations purchase systems directly from the developers using the free tools from their favorite vendor. Corporations will need to address the manner they use these new tools and the effectiveness of their organizational structure and use of employee's time.

A report suggests that employee time is wasted purposely to the tune of two hours per day. Add this waste to the approximate 2 hours of each day used to travel to their job, and one begins to see how advanced economies could better utilize 4 hours of each employees day. (click on the title for the story).

The technology exists for these people to meet and conduct their business online. Why we are not doing so is primarily attributed to the lack of systems being built. Why those systems have not been built is due to the fact that these ideas challenge the organizations bureaucracy. Those bureaucracies have power and have resisted these changes at every turn. They are now challenged with a method of more productive use of their employees time, or face elimination. The developers have the tools and they will be used in this manner. The deferral of technology is complete, the death of the technology was unsuccessful.

Lance again.

2005-07-03T20:48:00.000-06:00

Just as last year, Armstrong's performance on the first day makes him the favorite to win his 7th Tour de France.

Happy retirement Lance, you've earned it.

Oil prices and China

2005-06-27T22:56:00.000-06:00

I read an interesting article today regarding the oil price situation and China. It was in plain text, and unfortunately I am unable to refer to the specific article, but I can assure you it came from reliable sources.

The two particularly interesting points of the article were the Chinese were commencing a western styled strategic petroleum reserve, and secondly that the dynamics of the situation at the United Nations was in flux now that China's need for oil and gas was of premier concern for their economy.

First the known desire of the Chinese to build their own strategic petroleum reserve. Stated in this article as the equivalent of three months commercial and military requirements defines this at 6 million barrels per day. To achieve this buildup over a three year period is a serious concern. China's imports are roughly 6 million bbls per day, for 90 days they would require a strategic reserve of 540 million barrels of oil, divided by 1080 days (360 * 3) = 500,000 barrels of oil per day of incremental demand for the three year build up period.

I don't think current estimates of supply and demand necessarily consider this extra Chinese demand.

Secondly, the politics at and of the UN. This gives China a unique and powerful tool to deal with these energy issues. The tie in to the UN in this article is very brief however, the dynamics of the security council are handing a lot of power to China. I have to ask if this is the motivation behind Bush's controversial nomination of Bolton?

Conflict and contradictions will now play a much larger role in the UN's operations. This will lead to some significant changes, positions and realignments.

I think this latter point provides some tacit justification for the energy industry focusing more on North America as an operational priority as opposed to the global reach it has enjoyed in the recent past. The North American continent will be one of a few areas that the Americans will have defacto oil and gas operational control over.

The only other concern is the handing over of oil and gas producing assets like Unocal in exchange for those U.S. dollars the Chinese want to use.

Formula one hypocrites.

2005-06-19T16:44:00.001-06:00

Since 1994 we have repeatedly seen that the rule changes were being made to increase the safety of the sport for its drivers. Well today we saw what can only be concluded as the proper decision by the teams and drivers who did not race. For the likes of Ron Dennis and Sir Frank Williams you made the right decisions.

In 94 we saw Senna die in a freak accident that could not have been avoided. The sport is inherently dangerous at anything in excess of 50km / hour. The repercussions to the sport were minimal other then the principles of Williams were charged with manslaughter. And this is the critical point, Michelin did what they had to in declaring their product was not adequate. They did not want to be responsible for the potential problems that might occur if someone was hurt when they new their products were unsafe and did not do everything within their power to avoid the danger. Transferring the risks of racing to the teams, their sponsors, employees and other suppliers.

The problem with the race today is that the tires are contrived items that are asked to leap tall buildings in a single bound, and stop a speeding train. They have been identified as an area of competitive advantage by the teams and as such this has brought the sports "governing body" to create insane rules to monitor and control that competition. Cutting grooves in the tire, and as of this year, make the tire last a whole race weekend. Ridiculous.

So we have seen the inherent danger of asking components to do what is not possible. Raikkonen's suspension failed in the European Grand Prix and nothing about a stupid rule was done, other then the great Max Mosely threaten any breach of the rules would contain dire consequences of their breach of the tire rules. Instead of being open and ensuring that people remain safe, he threatens people with sanctions.

So we have a situation where if not for the activities of a number of reasonable, clear thinking and intelligent people in pulling their drivers and fans out of harms way, we have no driver, course worker, or fan hurt in any fashion.

The repercussions of these insane rule mongers Mosely and Eccelstone will hopefully be the end of their involvement and the beginning of a new series that is more properly constructed around the principles of engineering. Toyota, Honda, Mercedes, BMW and the private teams have threatened the idiots with a rival series, therefore lets do it. These idiots are not capable of making any decisions, therefore start up a rival series and eliminate them. So goodbye Bernie and Max, the two of you are hypocrites, fools and insane. You are so drunk with power you are of no possible use on the surface of the earth, so be gone with you.

The repercussions beyond that are the possible loss of Michelin. After investing significant resources and their Brand into this sport this is the treatment they get. I hope that no manufacturer of any component decides that this is a farce and their brand's risks outweighed the benefits. That they can see that the sport needs them and it is these two cartoons of the 60's (Moseley and Eccelstone) who are absolutely insane.

As for the commentators. Derek Daily has piped in over the past ten years saying that this or that should change for the safety of the sport. Pointing everything that moved and declaring unsafe was irresponsible and I don't think anyone took him seriously. Now to sit there and to say that the drivers should race makes him the dictionary image of hypocrite.

In the future, stupid rules should be ignored. If Formula One is not the premier sport of an all out sprint to win, then it will continue to fall in the fans eye.

Shut the CBC down.

2005-06-17T16:55:00.000-06:00

In Canada the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is owned and operated by the federal government. Just as Pravda kept the former Soviet Union "informed", the CBC has filled the same role here in Canada. Originally conceived to provide the rural areas of Canada with television entertainment, and the news that the commercial carriers were unwilling to provide. But that was 50 years ago when TV was new. The problem now is that I have been able to amuse myself with the CBC's broadcasts, and how totally foreign the coverage was to reality.

I was hoping that the amusement was not only mine and today the National Post has confirmed this in the Editorial section. Lydia Miljan, Senior Fellow at the Fraser Institute (A think tank), and Barry Cooper a Professor at the University of Calgary and a director of the Alberta Policy Research Centre at The Fraser Institute. (Referred to as Fraser et al).

Fraser et al note that the CBC appears to be employing a "garrison mentality". A mentality that "reflects a view of the world typical of beleaguered and close knit societies where one either fights outsiders or betrays the loyal ones behind the palisades". This happens to be a cutting article that provides scientific evidence of a bias in the CBC's reporting during the 2002 survey period.

I have to concur with the Fraser et al study, however I have to take their "garrison mentality" and re-brand it as "the politics of victimology". Just like the Palestinians used rocks to through at Israeli soldiers, the Canadian Government uses the CBC to support their Canadianism. This keeps the ruling party in power.

Now this may appear to most outside of Canada as a shrill response to another otherwise useless study. But what the National Post has done was to have Tony Burman, "Editor in chief of CBC News" respond. And it is here where everything gets interesting.

Mr. Burman's Pravda like performance and defence is accurately reflected in the title of his response "Reporting a statement doesn't prove bias", I beg to differ.

Pravda went the way of the dinosaur when people could get the facts from other sources. The CBC should realize they are not the only news providers. Seeing a variety of different perspectives on the story has a tendency to let the consumer reflect which is accurate and factual, and that which attempts to reflect a bias or is poorly disguised opinion. And I therefore have to say that the CBC probably interviews 50 people for a story and only select the three or four anti-American or pro-communist attitudes for broadcast. (Which seems to correspond to the Fraser Institute's study results.)

So Mr. Burman can continue to provide his neutral spin on the news as long as he is the only one being deceived. I can assure you that reviewing his response reflects that Mr. Burman's reading skills are at about a grade 6 understanding of the english language. For the rest of Canadians, why are we paying for this?

WebObjects.

2005-06-16T17:44:00.000-06:00

Apple fulfilled one of my long term wishes. WebObjects 5.3 was release with OS X Tiger and is 100% committed to Java now and has to be the class of the field in terms of use by the developer.

The tool was a major part of the NeXT groups product offering, apparently accounting for up to 50% of the companies revenues when Jobs sold NeXT to Apple in 1996. Not coincidentally the product at that time was selling for a mere $50,000.00.

A sign of the times is, that WebObjects is now free with the operating system. WebObjects has been fully integrated into the other Apple developer tools which enhances it for the developer in many ways.

So my wish was fulfilled in its entirety and was as follows.

1) Converting 100% to Java, (only 1.3.1 @ this time)
2) Fully integrated with Apple's other developer tools,
3) Make it a strategic component of the companies marketing.

It is fair to assume this last point about strategy is in play. Apple has the best developer platform position of any vendor. Enabling it to now go up against many other J2EE servers, and do a handsome job thanks to the developers use of WebObjects and a PowerBook. Vendor lock in probably never felt so comfortable. If one was smart, they would integrate the GlueCode J2EE server with WebObjects, and the world would start spinning at the behest of the developer.

Declaring a moral victory.

2005-06-15T22:46:00.000-06:00

The war is lost, take what you can and move on.

For the past twelve years I have pursued one project at the expense of everything else. Not living with my two boys is the most difficult, but their mother is doing a fine job.

The costs of doing something of tangible value are high. You can't avoid them, and they are worth it. For what ever reason that the project didn't go through, there had to be some logic, and I hope that one day I will find that logic.

The best part of giving it your all is the freedom to walk away. That you did your best and took the fight to them, to declare the moral high ground and move on. The freedom now to pursue other challenges and find the same kind of passion for those projects.

These days it doesn't take alot to realize these are the best of times in terms of technology and opportunity, stay tuned.

Steve Jobs' "Reality distortion field."

2005-06-07T14:25:00.000-06:00

You have to admire the thinking and brutal pace this man lives at. Running two companies that he says are "the most creative technical company", and "the most technical creative company" in the world. Jobs has to be a prototype human for this century.

Apple on Intel, or as I have asserted before, Apple is really morphing itself into the visions that Jobs had when he started Apple, and most importantly, his visions during his formative years in building NeXT. These were critical in his maturation and development of his thinking.

I believe it is important to note that NeXT and all of those technologies, which are now Apple's key technologies, ran on x86, m68k, Sun SPARC and HP's PA-RISC. Why can't the worlds best consumer operating system run on all the worlds processors, with the fit and finish of Apple? No reason not to.

No where in the reality distortion field is their an explicit statement that PowerPC is of no longer use. It is clear me to see that Jobs is just having the processor manufacturers line up outside his door to hear him speak of the future and their involvement. If Apple produced boxes with PowerPC, Power, SPARC, x86, Itanium, or Freescale, who wins? The customer with all the choices they need from one company. Brilliant.

The title to this blog is the url to Jonathon Schwartz' blog. He is the president of Sun Microsystems and is formally inviting Jobs to port to Solaris and SPARC. So go for it guys, give me racks of tape based storage, Power Servers, SPARC servers, Intel driven PC's. The future is about choice, and Jobs is the man that is going to give it to the consumers, businesses, developers, etc.

Who said that an OS was processor dependent? Not Jobs. By the time that LongHorn does make it to the retailers, Bill Gates and his clone Steve Balmer will certainly be the innovator of this idea.

Apple - Intel rumors, part du

2005-06-04T10:49:00.000-06:00

The more this rumor is posted the more I am beginning to think I like the idea. With LongTime being about a year and one half away, having the choice to run Apple OS X on an x86 could satisfy the masses for quite a while. This overall satisfaction would lead Microsoft to be more or less out of business by the time they finish long horn.

With 400 million PC's having x86, that's a market potential of $51.6 billion free dollars out of Bill's pockets and into Steve's pockets where it belongs. Operating systems would be $129.00 each.

The vendors would support this. As I would assume that Intel would follow through with the opportunity of building power.org based chips. This in the long run would help Freescale and IBM with the power architecture and make it the dominant processor sooner then otherwise would have been possible. Their support of a human, in Steve Jobs, and not a greedy money machine like Gates and Balmer would also be a welcomed change.

Vote +1 for the move.

GlueCode

2005-05-29T15:55:00.000-06:00

Of all the posts that I have written this may be the most important. I am attempting to discuss some technologies that mitigate the technical risks of many enterprise projects. To understand what has happened is attempted to be discussed, and although the implications are severe, I am certain that the world has changed as a result of this technology.

My experience with technology over the past few years has defined my strengths and weaknesses. My strength is putting together the implications of the technologies in a coherent manner. My weaknesses are in the technical arena and putting together the complexity of the entire suite of technologies. This weakness is shared by many due to the diversity and depth of the technologies available. That is until now.

Putting together the necessary tools to operate a coherent development environment is very challenging. In order to make the full system operational requires a level of technical sophistication that is beyond the scope of this blog, and although dramatic change will occur, this understanding does not change, it is not making the technology better to understand, just easier to use.

GlueCode, which was purchased last week by IBM, has put out the most interesting piece of technology. This technology has made my head spin with respect to its implications.

GlueCode does nothing new, with due respect to its developers, this is the understatement of this century. I have noted here the implications that the IDE's that are out in the hands of developers thanks to Eclipse and Netbeans. (Of note Oracle has not open sourced their IDE, but are providing their database and JDeveloper for free. I am currently spending most of my time in JDeveloper, mostly because of the time that I have spent in Oracle tools over the past 12 years, it feels a lot like home.) These tools are the foundations of the open source movement. Within these it is possible to do anything that you want or need to do to achieve the webservices style of Java development. Powerful stuff.

The cost in time to maintain this environment is heavy. Using the tools that are provided, and to configure and use them is a task that takes a lot of research, maintenance and time. GlueCode has reduced this entire process down to a double click of a .jar file. That's it, nothing more just download, install and double click. No scripts, nothing. I put the .jar file in the start up sequence of my sandbox. Starting up the user creates the entire environment for me. Nothing else to do.

Now that may be fascinating, but is it really that important? I think so. GlueCode have done what Apple has done for the computer user over the past 30 years, and made the equivalent steps for the developer just that easy. A technical achievement on both companies behalf.

The real key to GlueCode is this. It has reduced the technical aspects of Java development in the commercial area to the point where there is no technical risk. That's it, no technical risk.

Intel Apple rumors, an Apple perspective.

2005-05-24T16:59:00.000-06:00

Is Apple in discussions with Intel for Intel's benefit?

Is Apple showing Intel the way through Power.org. IBM's "open sourced" Power Architecture chip organization. Power.org was established to share some of the key attributes of IBM's technology, and their website states "Power.org represents a worldwide community of developers, tool providers, manufacturers, and leading brands uniting to lead a new era of open hardware innovation by collaborating on industry standards and delivering ground breaking applications based on Power Architecture technology."

It seems to be a redundant effort for Apple to regress to CISC from RISC. However, with the failure of Itanium, does Intel need to join the RISC party in some fashion?

With the success of the Power architecture, the derivative works of Sony's Cell and Microsoft's xbox, it seems that AMD and Intel are not at the RISC party, yet.

A commitment from Apple to jointly source Power architecture based chips from IBM, Freescale, Intel and AMD would certainly be in the area of a "Jobsian" view of reality.

With the structure of Power.org I don't see Intel having many choices.

Be Linda

2005-05-21T14:06:00.000-06:00

Much criticism in the press in Canada regarding the move from the conservatives to the liberals by Belinda Stronach this week, however, I have to sit in amazement and awe at her capability.

To be actively promoted as the key of the Ontario wing of the conservative party, a potential future leader, supported and promoted by Prime Ministers and Premiers, to be actively attending a diner to recognize the efforts of a prior Conservative Premier, and then slink out the back door so that no one sees her steal over to the current Prime Ministers residence to do a deal, takes guts.

To consider their offer in three days time and actively evaluate all the implications of such a move is breathtaking. Such deep and thoughtful actions taken by an obviously self proclaimed genius.

That is what this country needs. More gutsy leaders with Genius capability. Or then again maybe the Liberal Prime Minister would do anything to stay in power, yeah that's what it is.

Two seemingly unrelated contradictions.

2005-05-20T22:03:00.000-06:00

The first contradiction is the outrage of the Muslims in the alleged news of the desecration of the Koran at Guantonimo, Cuba. This in contrast to the willing murder of many fellow Muslims, by Muslims. Why would anyone believe these people when their days appear to be consumed by slaughtering other Muslims. Keep them active at home so that we don't have to be involved. I am sure we will hear much of their indignation regarding the treatment of SoDamn Insane.

Thomas Friedman pointed to this contradiction in the New York Times, and is in line with much of his thinking regarding the World today. His current book is poorly researched from a technology point of view but is worthwhile outside of that arena.

The second set of contradictions is the manic belief that all Microsoft is good, other companies bad. Or so it would seem. The Microsoft mania will soon have Sony on the run in gaming, Apple in computers, operating systems and iPods, Rim in their domain of Blackberry's, Sun's Java with .net, IBM in collaborative environments, Oracle in databases, SAP in applications and on and on.

These other companies do not receive the same biased reporting regarding their products as Microsoft receives in their future and prospective markets. And we are expected to believe that one company can dominate all technology, with superiority? Wait till Microsoft makes Spam, virus' and popups commercial, then we'll see their talent.

The point I wanted to make was, analysis regarding conflict and contradictions is the source to the solution of a problem. I believe Aristotle was the first to discover this. To avoid conflict and contradiction is to stick your head in the sand. To expect that some great force will come down and solve the problems of today is ludicrous. Oil and gas seemed to learn this with building the Alliance pipeline. A lesson that they appear to have subsequently completely forgotten. A lesson that the Ranchers are learning by building their own meat processing plants. You have to actively engage in solving your own problems. Santa and the tooth fairy are myths.

The Emperor has no clothes.

2005-05-14T19:48:00.000-06:00

Thanks to the open source movement we now clearly see the ERP application vendors have fitted the emperor with a fine wardrobe. Promising many enhancements and visions of the future extending out to as far as 2013.

Being paraded around as if they are the finest clothing in the land by the vendors willing dupe, the Emperor's Court Jester.

I wonder if the Emperor will ever discover the coincidence that his Jester's pension vests in 2013.

Tying two prior blog entries.

2005-05-06T12:27:00.000-06:00

I was talking with an associate over the past few days, and based on my previous two blog entries I have this question. We were speaking of reserves in general and specifically that a number of properties in Alberta remain uneconomic in this high priced energy environment.

What is the implication to these oil and gas firms that are so focused on managing the future by hedging their production? I have noted before that the royalties in Canada are subject to market prices and not based on what the company receives. The point of this blog is to ask "are the reserves of these producers accurately reflecting the hedging activities in their reserves reporting?" "Are they required to do so?"

Managing the future is not possible. Why are producers so focused on managing in the manner of the past. The implications of not dealing with the future could literally bankrupt an otherwise healthy producer based on their hedging activities. And as a result of the reserves reporting requirements (recall Shell's reserve restatement) prove that the management are committing an Enron style restatement of their earnings and reserve reports. But then again I may be wrong.

My personal rant

2005-05-06T11:40:00.000-06:00

Reading Alvin Toffler's "Future Shock" I noted an interesting comment regarding the situation I find myself in. This reference is to page 330 - 331 in Part Six, Strategies for Survival, Chapter 17 Coping with Tomorrow.

"First, any author who calls attention to a social problem runs the risk of deepening the already profound pessimism that envelopes the techno-societies. Self indulgent despair is a highly salable literary commodity today. Yet despair is not merely a refuge for irresponsibility, it is unjustified. Most of the problems besieging us, including future shock, stem not form implacable natural force's but from man made processes that are at at least potentially subject to our control."

"Second, there is danger that those who treasure the status quo may seize upon the concept of culture shock as an excuse to argue for a moratorium on change. Not only would any such attempt to suppress change fail, triggering even bigger, bloodier and more unmanageable changes than any we have seen, it would be moral lunacy as well. By any set of human standards, certain radical social changes are already desperately overdue. The answer to future shock is not non-change, but a different kind of change."

It is important to recall that these words were published in 1970.

My point is that the level of push back towards what I published in May of 2004 falls into this category. The oil and gas industry in Canada has done everything they could to silence the concepts I put forward in that publication. I can now say with complete assurance that what it is that they are doing falls into this category and is therefore immoral.

Energy companies

2005-04-27T16:33:00.000-06:00

Today many Canadian oil and gas operations first quarter financials were announced. Companies include Encana, Nexen, and Petro-Canada. My disappointment in the announced earnings and attitudes expressed by managent reflect poorly on these companies.

Firstly my opinion of the energy markets is obviously in contrast with most and as stated in this blog, oil will hit over $120 U.S. this summer. Natural gas has been effectively re-priced at 8 times as opposed to its recent past of 6 times, and early 90's values of 10 times. This moves natural gas to a peak of $15.

Nonetheless these companies continue to sell most of their production, hedged against future contracts. These are supposed to be energy companies. Why are they unable to see that much of their products demand is insatiable and deny the full upside of these price swings? Encana, Canada's largest producer lost money in the first quarter of 2005. This is somehow very wrong to me.

Secondly the CEO of Petro-Canada announced that their production volumes fell 10% over 2004 volumes. If the company is losing over 40,000 barrels per day in production, why is this not raising serious alarms?

Petro-Canada also announced that most of the supply / demand imbalance will be corrected by the consumer. The high prices were not compelling him to find and produce more product, but has him state that the consumer is going to have to begin to reduce their consumption of energy. This to me is an additional concern that needs to be addressed.

There is a significant risk here. The Canadian royalty environment requires that the market prices are used to calculate the royalty. With these hedging practice's, any large deviation in the companies risk profile could be affected by higher commodity prices. This leading to higher royalty payments that offset proportionally larger amounts of the hedged revenues.

Nonetheless the leadership of this industry is maintaining the status quo by mitigating the management risks, and blaming the consumers. Instead of aggressively positioning their companies for higher production and values, they ensure that the entrenched management maintain low expectations and poor to losing performance. This is a tragedy and a reflection of a serious lack of leadership.

And now this...

2005-04-21T14:00:00.000-06:00

a busy day for the revolution. Microsoft concedes the need to inter-operate with Linux and Solaris. And then Comcast and Time Warner purchase Adelphia.

Adelphia has to be the best value ever paid for a bankrupt company, ever. This seals the fate of the north American cable marketplace for Time Warner. The brilliance of the AOL merger will now become evident to all.

The technical attributes of what Microsoft is doing is enabling the running of X windows. This is something that the Mac has done since 2001's version of the Mac OS X. With X Windows we are talking very old technology. My X Windows system takes up 159 MB of Ram with open office running. Opening the shell to other systems is negligible. What it provides me is the ability to remotely access other Unix computers and their applications and run them, with the windowing at my location. Stuff that the Unix world has been doing for ever.

So technically this is hardly difficult, the ability to run X window libraries on Microsoft could be done in a matter of a few months programming. The real difficulty is the policies that support the change and why Microsoft would do this. I think Microsoft is killing Linux and making this their last ditch effort to do so.

By "embracing and extending" Linux they are able to maintain control of the corporate desktop. Microsoft's control is in question with Linux, and control will eventually be transferred to someone in the near future. The real architect in this transaction is not Gates et al at all, but Jonathan Schwartz and Scott McNealy of Sun. Recall the play nice initiative Microsoft signed and sent $2 billion to Sun in 2004?

In a previous blog, upon the open sourcing of Sun Solaris, I declared Linux was dead and it is. Why would a programmer work for free with no residuals when he can do better work with Solaris, and build a service based organization around his talents? This business model will keep him healthy and prosperous. Writing for Linux is ultruistic and not for the commercially minded, writing for Solaris is a business.

The added attribute is that Solaris is about as good of an operating system that can be built or imagined. Most important is the genius' at Sun who have put this together for the past 20 years, while Microsoft was teaching people to use a mouse. Sun is also the owner and founder of Java, with Dr. Gosling. Java is as good as Solaris, and Microsoft and Linux (both having served their role) are now going to expire into the sunset.

So start using Solaris and Java, and buy up as much Sun stock as can be had. At $3.50 it's the deal of this century.

And Google announces earnings. Anybody else out there awake and participating in this revolution?

Never any clearer then...

2005-04-21T10:50:00.000-06:00

today. The New York Stock Exchange merges and plans to go public. The revolution is over in the equity markets, they are truly global, electronic and open. When 212 year old institutions merge with 8 year old start ups, you know the writing is on the wall.

Who's next, I see that much of the Sarbane's Oxeley legislation has the consulting business buzzing, but I think retails turn is up next. Maybe the high energy prices will lead to different thinking in terms of supply and demand. Where the cost of goods is optimized from an energy use perspective. This energy issue being the real threat that causes the re-think that is supporting much of the 100 year old super market concept. It is my assertion that this super market concept is derived from the invention of the automobile and therefore requires new thinking focused on the Internet.

Maybe the revolution will be in all businesses. Fueled by the wireless and unlimited addressing of IPv6.

When institutions are faced with these types of market changes smart people come up with smart solutions. The opportunities and risks for people and organizations of all kinds is significant and real. Just ask the head of the NYSE.

The Bigger Blue.

2005-04-09T10:06:00.000-06:00

The attached link is to Business Weeks story about IBM's current strategy. Many questions regarding what they are up to can be answered through the review of this information.

For myself it is clarification of what I have wondered about the company for some time. As I have noted in this blog many times, IBM, Sun and Apple will own the technology market in the foreseeable future. IBM in business, Sun in Java, Solaris and their SPARC processor. Some of the best pure computing minds are housed as Sun employees. Apple of course will be the premier software (Microsoft) and hardware (Dell / Intel) company in the consumer marketplace. So what and how does IBM fit in here specifically.

The answer in the article is I think very sound. IBM's strategy appears to be focused on business process outsourcing. The ability to manage entire industry business processes, optimize them and resell them as the lowest cost provider based on their efficiency and effectiveness. The synergies are obvious when you consider the volume that could be managed for an industry compared within one company. Now this is not 100% of the organization, only those areas that do not provide specific elements of innovation or business strategy.

In oil and gas, and particularly the small and intermediary producer, the ability to have all of the administrative attributes of the organization managed by IBM should be openly embraced. The strategic and innovation advantages reside in the asset base and in the engineering and geological resources, and talent housed within. In other words an oil and gas based focused research organization.

So Big blue attempts to become Bigger Blue through this strategy? This may be the most important point about IBM strategy. The outsourcer has the ability to dictate the environment that they use to ensure the services. This is where IBM will be able to maintain the lowest costs, the ability to control these decisions will enable the firm to use their state of the art hardware, software and services. Effectively shutting out those that are not able to provide usable services, such as Microsoft.

Whether this strategy is sound is yet to be determined, however, that is apparently what the CEO, Sam Palmisano is doing during his term. An excellent strategy to pursue while the world slowly learns to adopt and use IBM's advanced technologies. In the future, as a software developer and researcher, I will be looking towards IBM as my number one customer.

The innovation age.

2005-04-08T08:09:00.000-06:00

Jonathon Schwartz of Sun Microsystems has coined the phrase "The Participation Age" to describe his views on why Sun open sourced Solaris. Stating that the active participation of everyone is what the information age has led to. I would generally agree with his comments and assertions with one key point.

The duration of the participation age will be short. Lasting only a few to five years as the ability and capability of people become fully appreciative and productive in this environment. Many will not be able to comprehend the changes and may get left behind. The participation age will lead to the real revolution that will resurrect the economies high growth rates, that being the innovation age.

Comparing where the information technologies are today, and the state of use in the general public and commercially, there is a very large gap. This gap will be reflected in large variances in the productivity of some, and stagnant in others. Canada would be a member of the stagnant group and India, China and the United States being higher productivity groups. Much can be said how the American way is being challenged by India and China, I say let them have it, as there is no better way to provoke the best out of the American people then by way of a significant challenge.

The innovation age is upon us, and requires the active participation of everyone. You can get on the bus or wait for something else, I've got myself a front seat.

Yahooo

2005-04-01T12:53:00.000-07:00

Thanks Google, the 2 gig limit, its perfect.

Next, I want to buy storage for more please. Say $ / gig / year? With its own IPv6 address, please and thank you.

As a major proponent of gmail for over a year, (one of the first), dump any and all email for personal use. A gmail address is the equivalent of the home or personal cell phone number. If in the future I work for 600 companies how can they get a hold of me? What address will I be using in 15 years?

Gmail.

Wake up...

2005-04-01T11:56:00.000-07:00

Much discussion regarding the oil and gas prices is in the news. I might suggest that if people are displeased with the prices they are charged that they recycle or re-use the energy they used last week.

The point of this back handed slap is that there is not one product, activity or commodity like energy and nuclear bombs. Both use energy, take a long time to make and are destroyed completely when used. Gold is re-used, food is re-grown, the air we breath fuels the trees, which make more air.

People need to think of their energy consumption from a more realistic point of view. I can't get a small coffee from Starbucks for less then two liters of oil. Which is more important?

It is this last lesson that will define this energy debate. The only way we can appreciate something so valuable as energy is through limited of supply. This limit of supply is the consumers fault, consuming 120,000,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day is insane.

One of my ...

2005-03-30T11:34:00.000-07:00

Preferred blogs is by Jonathon Schwartz of Sun Microsystems. With the recent departure of Ed Zander from the lofty heights at Sun to Motorola, Schwartz got his big chance to run a tech giant. Watch this guy, his thinking is cutting edge with a communicative ability that slices through the b.s.

Now many may argue that Sun is not a tech giant, however, those may recall my prediction that the technology troika of the future consists of three companies Apple, IBM and Sun. Each for different reasons will share in the future of the computing world and make the promise of technology real. The past troika of Microsoft, Intel and Dell/HP died a while ago and no one has yet told the business or consumer markets.

The key success of this troika is clearly in the hands of the Sun and the strategic positioning they have orchestrated since their dot com meltdown. Not only were they able to avoid the tombstones like Apple, and survive which makes them a formidable competitor, and something that all three companies share, but they seem to have done it despite the markets acceptance and their way, as Frank Sinatra might say.

Although the losses have been substantial in comparison to the market leaders, they kept their head above water and continued the difficult knitting that they needed to do. A remarkable task and one that I think parallels what Steve Jobs has done over the course of his career. Many of the initiated that Apple is currently reaping were from the 1970's style of vision that Steve Jobs was granted.

Not many people have been disenchantment from my stock recommendations, only those that did not follow it. The first pick in my life was up 2100%, Apple my second pick is up 600% from when I recommended it and I think we are going to see a similar run up in Sun.

Evaluating what I see I think that Sun is a $200 billion market cap company. That is a 1,450 increase from where it is at today, you may want to take some of that Apple stock and move it into Sun. The trick is to sell, anybody can buy, and I still think Apple may break $300 billion market cap. So that is two stocks Apple and Sun are both buys. You may have to wait a long time for my next recommendation, as these opportunities are rare.

What did Henry Ford do...

2005-03-13T11:29:00.000-07:00

It probably is just me, however, I was thinking that Henry Ford introduced the assembly line to the unsuspecting public and increased his productivity substantially. What I was wondering is what did the employees do? Was there not a demand for a new type of worker that was better able to work in the assembly line environment?

It is fair to assume that there was some rather large demand in the quality of the understanding of the average worker in the new Ford plants vs. the old say Buick plants that had not adopted the automated and radical changes. The assembly line certainly has evolved over the generations since the days of Henry Ford. The Japanese have raised the science and art of the assembly line and are competing on that basis. After 100 years Henry Ford would be proud of the effect of his invention over the long term.

The point I want to make in this exercise is to ask what type of worker is going to be employed on a go forward basis today. The ability and capability of organizations is certainly changing to accommodate the needs in society. However, will people change their methods in work quickly enough. I see that the automation of intellectual thought is more then possible, but also practical today. In the 40th year of the computer revolution we have come as far as the assembly line brought us in its first 40 years. However, the concepts and issues are far more complex then the industrial age. We have now entered an era where, as I have documented in this blog elsewhere, some rather significant changes are happening. The most innovative is the method of organized work in the open source development environment. To monitor the speed of change in those technologies are mind boggling and beyond words.

The overall shortage of human labor seems to be building in all areas on a go forward basis. How these people are found is of concern to most companies at this point, however, I think may in fact mask the real issues. What type of worker is required? The ability to operate the information technologies in an effective manner, I would suggest, is not that strong currently. Outside of the general use of windows and Microsoft Office, the ability of the average worker to do any thinking or automation by programming is very limited.

Do these issues go hand in hand? The shortage of workers being a reflection of the higher demand for people skills? Is demand soaring and the capacity to fulfill the demand not able to keep up? How is the 60 hour work day going to come about?

I think that the solution to this is that people begin to charge for the cost of doing the work based on the amount of human input. This requires the standard costs of the time for the average worker to do the work be billed at a reasonable rate and then the work undertaken in whatever fashion it is done.

If this work is done manually the ability to earn a good living will diminish due to the competition from the people that are able to compete in the automation fashion. If the ability to automate much of the process would enable the worker to do more then 8 hours of work per day, it is then in his best interests to exploit that capability. Law firms began bidding on all work a few years ago. The customer really doesn't know what work was done. The use of word processors in that profession has been going on for over twenty years. What do they do now to earn those significant bills. Doctors have been billing based on standards for many years as well.

Time for the average worker to start billing on the basis of standards is now. This would precipitate the motivation and application of the technologies to offset the demand for people. This would also be the beginning of the move away from the constraints of an eight hour day and the beginning of how society begins to produce and enjoy more of what it wants and needs. Henry Ford showed the way, the time is now and the need exists.

The loonies are running the show.

2005-03-01T19:26:00.000-07:00

I have stood in amazement at the performance of our current and past federal governments in Canada. The group that we have are a credit to the politics of victimology. I would be surprised if they could do anything dumber. Our opposition seems to be limited to laughing the loudest and the longest at the government, and doing essentially nothing about anything. The people in Palestine and Lebanon seem to understand things better then Canada does.

That we continue to distance ourselves from the Americans is going to severely hurt us economically. You don't tug on Superman's cape was a line from a famous song in the 70's. To add additional support to anything un-American we continue to celebrate past terrorists and defy the world community by un-branding known terrorist groups.

The French influence is strong in the Canadian government. Their attempts to con the rest the country has fallen on deaf ears for many years now, so they seem to want to spread their B.S. to the rest of the world.

My government does not represent me in these actions. We have some logical and proper people in western Canada that do not subscribe to these actions. Please do not consider us as the same as them or in any way provide any willing support, even though they take our money.

Foreign currency transactions.

2005-02-16T17:54:00.000-07:00

I made the comment a while ago that the governor of the bank of Canada made a mistake in not maintaining a higher interest rate policy. I also speculated that currencies speculators would enter the market to control the flow up and down at their whim and desire. As much as the government and bank governor have talked and tried to get the value down, little has been actually done.

The dollar sits at about 80 cents but with the amount of effort put in, it should have been down to about 75 cents. The problem now, as I speculated before is the control now rests outside of the domain of the authorities and in the hands of others.

The first to benefit from this will be the Chinese. Sensing the need to keep their industries and economic growth functioning, they have declared an all out war for the commodities of the world. This is only the beginning of a long term boom in commodity prices.

The Chinese can now easily trade the U.S. dollars that they have for Canadian dollars and in essence create two hedges for themselves. One against the U.S. dollars decline, (which otherwise they can not do anything about because they own so many of them and the Japanese yen provides no value to them) and two, the resource base of Canada is the defacto source of the commodities they need.

So a tip of the hat to Mr. Dodge our bank governor. The time to have kept this from happening has passed. The effect will be a soaring Canadian dollar, the Ontario and Quebec economies, not here in the west, are toast on the basis of their high labor, high dollar manufacturing facilities which they have all along attempted to compete against the Chinese with.

Bloggers 3, MSM 0.

2005-02-14T11:28:00.001-07:00

Click on this link to the story on the NY Times regarding blogging. (Subscription required) (MSM = Main Stream Media)

It appears blogging has exercised its latest victim, that being the head of CNN.

The accusation is that he made a comment that the U.S. military was targeting and killed 12 journalists. He made these comments at the Davos forum while on stage with reporters and foreign dignitaries. The Foreign Minister of Afghanistan was also with him on stage.

After two weeks of intense pressure asking for clarification and facts regarding the comment, the head of CNN quit with the statement that he was misquoted.

IMHO this act by the bloggers is exactly what democracy needs. Questions are being raised that ask if this blogging power is a good thing or not. It can only be a good thing when an individual who has the role and responsibility of affecting the news attempts to put across his / her views in a public forum. What was this guy thinking? His responsibilities are to his viewers to report the facts. In a forum such as this his personal comments take on a note of authority and validity due to his position. This reporting can not be accepted as fact or news when it is only a personal opinion. The U.S. Pentagon had issued a press release prior to the comment that the press had received some collateral damages in Iraq.

Two starkly different points of view of the facts, and one that when the initial blogger asked the Davos media if they were going to report the comment, none said that they would. So the point is missed by the media if they think the resignation of CNN's president is wrong, as the NY Times article asserts as the opposing opinion to blogging.

With respect to the NY Times article this was a good job of reflecting the facts from both points of view. There is, and never would be an issue with the opposing point of view, the point is the media can not represent their personal views as those of the company they work for. No blogger has it as an objective to remove somebody they are only commenting on, only the integrity of the institution (MSM) report honestly the source and distribution of the facts.

Bye Bye Carly.

2005-02-09T13:45:00.000-07:00

Much justification for the two sides of why Carly should have been able to stay or go will rage for long after HP is gone. That's right gone. Hired to do a Lou Gerstner for HP, Carly was fresh from what I consider the disaster she did at Lucent. Self promotion can get in the way of good leadership and skills, it is my opinion that Carly will be the poster girl for all the technology opportunities lost at HP, but a similar threat to all tech companies that this stuff isn't easy. This also supports the impact of Jobs' return at Apple. Technology is tough.

The basic criteria of success that a leader should be evaluated on is their acquisition costs. This is the first criteria, and the only criteria to make the 2 second evaluation of the prospects for the lead positions in business. Here is where Carly does not make the cut, and fails miserably on all counts.

The criteria is the price paid for acquisitions. This one task can make hero's and zeroes out of anyone. The ability to pull off an acquisition with reasonable cost is the real art. Any idiot with a big bank account and large market capitalization can use those to buy everything and anything. However, eventually the high cost leads to poor asset performance which drags down the other areas of the company and it all collapses from there. People loose faith, integrations go poorly and so on.

This is where Carly earns the biggest idiot award. Attempts to purchase PriceWaterhouse Coopers for $19 billion, was subsequently poached by IBM for $3 billion. How does she justify a $16 billion dollar differential? Second was Compaq. The merger in a commodity business to acquire this company is beyond belief. That she undertook to take a stand and force the acquisition against the Packard board members is just plain stupid. This just is dumb.

IBM now has PriceWaterhouse Coopers, and is selling a comparable market share in the PC business to the Chinese for $2 billion. If I am not mistaken I think Carly paid $42 billion for Compact.

So, IBM ends up with the services of PWC and no cash draining PC business. A net transaction of $1 billion. Carly gets ousted only after she spends $42 billion to own a defunct PC market. The point of this mathematics is to contrast the $1 billion IBM used to acquire the proper position in the market, something that Carly thought she could do for only $61 billion.

Probably the dumbest most idiotic, ego driven, legacy of all time.

Dear Mr. Chretien.

2005-02-08T13:32:00.000-07:00

As the former Prime Minister, you are required to testify as to the purpose of the $100's of million of dollars that you spent on "Quebec related soverignty issues".

As a taxpayer, as soon as you justify those specific expenditures, what is it that we have been getting for the $8 billion a year that we pay in transfer payments to Quebec.

Putin and the Saudi's?

2005-02-03T09:49:00.000-07:00

What are these boys up to now, specifically Georgia needs a leader, and all is quiet in Iraq. Who has been funding the Iraqi insurgents may best be answered by asking the question, who has the greatest to loose if democracy breaks out in the region.

With respect to Georgia, isn't it odd that now that Ukraine leaders are untouchable, the head of Georgia has such a tragic accident? I wonder whom will be installed as a replacement? What's Ed up to these days.

The more things change the more they stay the same. I am certain that the French and German leadership, hypocrites of the highest level, are now actively pro-democratic. So here is to the likes of the Saudi family and Putin, who have the effective control of the puppet regimes of France and Germany.

That makes 4

2005-01-31T16:44:00.000-07:00

Four countries that the residents would dodge significant personal harm to get out and vote. Where proponents of the democratic process are poisoned as in the Ukraine, or written off as misguided as in the case of President Bush. Our fearless CBC in Canada choose to find the only Iraqis that went to the polls with the objective of removing the "occupiers" in order to continue to support the CBC mandate that America bad, terrorism good style of thinking.

To those that believe in freedom and democracy, we can all turn our attentions to the future and begin to build our lives and countries on the basis of the hopes and dreams of each individual. We are safe in knowing that democracy is worth fighting for despite the risks and that the Vladimir Putin's and The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation may think or do otherwise.

Now with Afghanistan, Palestine, Ukraine and Iraq with freshly minted democracies, the terrorists will be looking for a new place to exploit. I am certain that the American's and Iraqis are employing the Art of War from Sun Tzu and will leave the Saudi border with Iraq open for the terrorists to escape. It does the American's and Iraqis no good to encircle the terrorists and force them to fight for their lives at this point. So I am certain that the Saudi's will receive their former citizens with open arms and provide these terrorists with all the targets they could ever have wanted.

Additional areas where democracy may begin to show some opportunity could be in such far reaching and obscure areas such as France, Germany and here in Canada.

Groovy baby...

2005-01-27T18:46:00.000-07:00

So I have noted that the 60 hour work day is an objective and the technology continues to morph in the way that it is developed and implemented. Other then the increase in processing power, which may be a given based on the cumulative production of chips, what else is required. What's the key technology that will make these things real.

As I quoted in this blog's title, the Mike Meyers creation of Austin Powers has generated much to resurrect the slang comment of Groovy. I was referring to the Groovy programming language and I wanted to write about how it will provide the key technology that is / will make the things that have been mentioned real.

Groovy is in beta version 9 and is going through some rather large teething pains, but already shows much promise. The versatility of the tool is its appeal and the conflict that it is generating, is critical to resolving the issues that it is finding itself in. So what is so good about this programming language vs say Java?

Groovy is Java. That is to say it is part of the Java Community Process and is JSR 241. Using the classes and methods that are employed in conventional Java, and employing the Groovy language towards the Java code brings a new level of capability to the Java language and runtime environment. Specifically Groovy is not typed and as such makes for a far easier and less rigid language for developers to write in. With the rigor of typing more or less gone, the Groovy language can be used as the Swiss army knife of Java code. With Java employing the high end capability of a typed language, and Groovy scripts enabling the efforts of developers to take to the quick and dirty solution that have been the domain of Perl, PHP and ruby.

Groovy opens up two key areas that these other scripting languages currently fill. Scripting and regular expressions. The way in which these two areas alone will provide the kind of innovation that this blog is documenting and seeking is as follows. First scripting.

Perl is a good example of how the sharing of code between developers can grow. The CPAN website is a portal for scripts written in Perl from others and have been found to be useful in their application. These scripts are fairly basic in their application and do the job that is required. The breadth and diversity bridges all business and general interests and are comprehensive in their offerings. Areas such as bio-informatics use Perl extensively and therefore, its value to the human genome is immeasurable.

The ability to write a quick and dirty script to do something can not be provided by Java. However, Java has substantial advantages over Perl. Both are interpreted languages however, when compiled Java can provide substantial performance increases over other languages like Perl. If only Java was easier to write the simple stuff, which is what Groovy is designed to do, and does.

When the XP programming methods adopts Groovy in wholesale fashion, expect the proliferation of tools and code generation based on that method to smoke the previous versions of any kind of previous or current toolset.

The second big area that Java is gaining strong capability is in regular expressions. These are the most powerful means of employing computer resources, particularly on the internet. Perl is doing a good job in this area, and is its primary strength. Regex's are able to find the proverbial needle in a haystack, very quickly. The human genome hold 2.9 billion base pairs. A base pair is designated by its chemical nucleotide of A, C, T, or G. Imagine 2.9 billion of these strung together. Lets say you have a sequence of 300 base pairs from a chicken that you think may have a similar pattern in the human genome. Enter regex and its done in what would appear to be a very short period of time by comparing each base pair one by one.

Now the real power of regex is in the area of wild cards and other replacements. Lets say half of the base pairs are known for sure, and the remaining could be either T or G. Regex would be able to determine the matching sequences based on all the possibilities and searching the entire base pairs. Just as this is inconceivable without computers, the relative ease in which it done is surprising. Applying this search capability to any and all types of data is valuable for those who expect to see patterns in things, however, what about data streams. Sed and awk are older regex tools from the Unix world and are based on data streams. Picking out the similar information as regex do in the static data world. Sed and Awk capabilities are build into all regex systems and Perl and Java have them incorporated.

The point of this lonely stroll is the static and dynamic streams of data are where the value in all things new are and will soon be discovered. Static data is the domain of most today, however, data streams are going to become the base of most activity and value generation, those that are prepared will succeed without question. The ability to quickly coble together a script to run and find the data is of immense value to any researcher. And this is where the Groovy world will pay handsomely for the geniuses behind the project.

So, the technology world can be as thin as the browser inspired dot.com bubble, or it can employ these kinds of tools and capabilities to do some real work. Your choice. Continue to ignore these things as fads or see them for what they are, the automation of human thought.

Made the decision to...

2005-01-24T20:46:00.000-07:00

make up my mind about development methods and the automation of source code generation.

Source code generators have been around for a long time and have become quite sophisticated in the manner in which they generate software code. DOS versions of Dbase had code generation for reports back in the 1980's so the technology has always been available, however, with all things technical, much more sophisticated today. In 1993 I began development work with Oracle's CASE Toolset that sold me on the concept of the automation of code. I have now changed my mind after the past few years of attempting to determine which method was correct.

The impetus for such a change was the open source world and their more or less "craft" approach to developing code. In answer to the ability of common users to generate usable code, their methods went through a number of significant developments as well, being pushed by the ability of generators to create a lot of usable code, their craft was in jeopardy and they were threatened, in my opinion. Taking creative and talented people with implicit threats makes them question their fundamental beliefs, and generally creates a fight response, as opposed to fleeing. It is this fight that has, in my opinion, now won me over to their methods of development, and abandoning of the code generators for the craft approach.

Firstly, the code generators that have been developed are significantly better then one can imagine and will only continue to develop a better capability to generate better systems. As more processing power becomes available, these generators usually find good places to use it. They are an invaluable tool that will only continue to get better. Generators will help to solve the majority of problems facing the world and provide fast, capable systems in a timely fashion.

There will now be, and currently is, a parallel universe of development lead by the rest of the development world that will grow to provide the leading edge, high quality sophisticated software and will be called upon to solve the critical problems.

Seemingly irrelevant and academic so far, then best stop reading because it only gets worse. The innovation that is causing my decision is the XP style of programming. XP is short for Extreme Programming and is a recent development that works surprisingly well due to a number of methods of, you got it, code generation. However, in a controlled environment that does not really generate the code but automates much of the process of development. Ant, Maven, CVS, eyeballs and brains, incremental builds, testing with Junit, refactoring, design patterns, code standards, re-usability, layering and decoupling, the list goes on and on. Why are these so much better?

Without getting into the details of why these tools, methods, procedures are better, how does XP provide such value? It is very simple, although the time required for systems development is longer, the software product quality is much higher, and as such breaks less. Enabling extreme programming methods to build better code and more sophisticated systems. The point should also be made that these are all Java technologies and techniques, they may work on other languages, however, I generally only concern myself with Java. The reason the "craft" vs "automation" wins this round is because the code does not cost anything to copy and deploy elsewhere.

Simply put, automation was employed in the physical world so that the productivity can be substantially higher then hand. This provided the product with the associated quality not being that different from hand made. However, there are still a number of hand made cars that cost in the order of $400,000 even in this environment that produces most vehicles by robot.

The quality of humans is just better, either in the physical or virtual world. Things built by hand cost more because of the cost to produce each unit, not the associated costs to develop and prepare the plans and blueprints, the impediments to deployment in the software world simply do not exist. This was the challenge in making this decision and why the solution is obvious at this point.

With software reuse, the quality will only increase. The real cost of software development lies in the planning and blueprinting, or writing the software, not in the deployment, which is and always will be nothing.

So for lack of a few hundred words the decision is justified and documented, thanks to blogs.

The 60 hour workday.

2005-01-23T10:55:00.000-07:00

The objective would be to "think" for 60 hours in one day, and then everyday afterward.

Not possible? I beg to differ. Henry Ford used the assembly line to automate human physical effort, and in the process, through machines, enabled the average worker to increase their capacity substantially, not to mention Mr. Fords productivity. Leaders in all disciplines have the capacity to move ideas through the support of their followers, enabling the message and the power of an idea to fully realize its potential. This is the draw and the power of politics.

But intellectual thought has never been considered to be "automatable". The process improvements that have been brought to the world through increased application of computer processing power has been ongoing for 40 years and will continue in its exponential manner for the next 40 years. It is also important to note that I am not talking about "artificial intelligence".

Leveraging the humans efforts to conduct actions without involvement. We are beginning to see the genesis of this idea form in the auto industry. In the 80's Chrysler brought us the talking car. Thankfully this was a monumental failure and rightfully so because that again is not what I think will happen. Currently the auto industry has made cruise control measure the reasonable distance between vehicles at the various speeds, and manipulates the brake and the gas to achieve the right distance between vehicles. Headlights that adjust from high to low beams is another example.

Blog's are an ideal method of publishing thoughts that may have never seen the light of day. Copyright law is established so that society benefits from the best ideas and enables an idea to be safely published so that more and better ideas can be generated from the greater base of ideas. Blog's are achieving this and having significant effects as noted elsewhere in this blog. If Google hasn't provided you with the tools to use this, then Google will never help you.

I read that the PowerPC that Apple employs as the G5 in its 2.5 ghz dual model is the approximate equivalent processing power of a Guppy. Now our intelligence may be higher then a Guppy's but this puts in context the effect of the technical revolution that we are in. Humans are exponentially smarter and it will be a while that each person has the kind of power that would facilitate the objective of 60 hours of thinking per day, but how long, and when we get there how is it that we will know?

Last point of this minor road trip down oblivion is this, we know that we use a marginal percentage of the brain, and have not stopped pursuing the unlocking of its full potential. Hopefully this will dovetail the effect of increased computer processing and 60 hours per day may be the modern equivalent of 240 hours per day. But why do we focus so much energy on the human genome and also brand the 90% of the genetic material as "junk" DNA? Dismissing the value of the "junk" DNA may lead to more preconceived notions of the way the genome is structured. It is these preconceived notions that are the inherent method in which we humans impede our way to attaining the objective of this entry.