American companies and institutions tend to create projects based on either immediately practical applications or open-ended research. In Japan I encountered something else: comparatively long term application-oriented research projects.
Author: Stearns
Inventing the Future: ante
Folks have asked me about using Croquet now, and looking at the source. I discussed part of the answer in Jasmine release, which discussed the currently available proof-of-concept. But there’s some more stuff that people should know.
Inventing the Future: electronic discourse done right
Maybe we don’t have to choose between persistence and spontaneity, between synchronous and asynchronous.
Consider threaded blogs vs live chat. The former has a permanent record and structure, and people can collaborate asynchronously, but lacks spontaneous give and take. The latter is spontaneous, but lacks permanence (unless someone saves a transcript, and manages their collection of transcripts, and the sharing of same with others). But do these have to be different mechanisms? Maybe we can have everything with a single interface, so people don’t have to choose?
outsource top management
This essay by Dick Gabriel is cute, short (one page), and worth reading. Dick has a long history of thought-provoking good-news bad news jokes: this one’s about outsourcing and executive compensation.
By the way, Dick was great Lisp programmer at Stanford who founded a great Lisp company and sold it to his competitor to go work in computer science labs. Then he dropped out of tech at to get an MFA in poetry at a relatively advanced age. He writes, talks to anyone who will listen, and is a great curmudgeon. Reminds me a lot of John. Check out the photo. Better yet, check out his other writings at his Dreamsongs site.
Inventing the Future: learning the system
Dear Diary,
I’m off to Japan Tuesday for the big conference. Better take a snapshot of what I’ve been doing, because I expect my world to change by the time I get back. My first six weeks on this radical Croquet project were spent with very general learning of what’s what. Drinking knowledge from a firehose. For the next six we’ve been prototyping some of the features from conference papers written by my boss, Julian, and his counterpart at U. Minnesota. We’re going to demo these at the conference, and we go on right after Alan Kay’s keynote address. Yikes. Good thing Julian gives great demos! I imagine the conference organizers know that and put him in that slot accordingly. (Cast of characters here).
[details below the fold]
Inventing the Future: players
So, you join a university team that is in the middle of a project that is throwing away the models of how computer programs and interfaces work and starting again from scratch. Where do you begin?
There’s a nice outside review of the scope and implications of the Croquet project in
this person’s blog.
This is deep stuff — too deep for me to fully grasp in my first two months. So I started by sorting out the people and their projects.
Inventing the Future: Jasmine release
Croquet is still being designed. Personally, I’d like to see something useable this summer, but that remains to be seen.
There is a “developer’s version” available now, called Jasmine, but there’s some confusion as to what Jasmine is in relation to the real thing. I’m going to try to straighten that out here.
Inventing the Future: no names, please!
In this information-laden world, who really wants to deal with addresses, ss#’s, a bevy of phone numbers, even more account numbers, part numbers, and on and on? It seems we sometimes need the precision afforded by (usually non-mnemonic!!!) names, but we don’t like it. What if it’s not necessary?
Inventing the Future: sign me up – not!
My boss has blog on blogger, which I gather is now owned by Google. Hard to believe that the “Don’t be evil” folks have a hand in this monstrosity.
consumers union telecom lobbying website
‘Consumers Union launched a web site (www.hearusnow.org [love the title! -H]) that is
designed to provide consumers with information on telecom and media
industry developments, help them shop for products and services, and
make it easier to lobby lawmakers and policy-makers on issues. “This
web site addresses the explosion of activist groups and energized
consumers who are frustrated by the government’s hands-off approach
when it comes to dealing with their concerns over higher bills, poorer
service, and the fact a handful of companies control their
communications,” said Gene Kimmelman, senior director-public policy
for Consumers Union.’
SOURCE: TR Daily, AUTHOR: Paul Kirby pkirby@tr.com