Archive - Apr 2010
April 11th
The Impact of the Internet on Institutions in the Future
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 04/11/2010 - 14:17A recent report by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, The Impact of the Internet on Institutions in the Future suggests:
Most surveyed believe that innovative forms of online cooperation could result in more efficient and responsive for-profit firms, non-profit organizations, and government agencies by the year 2020.
Mostly, the people surveyed were ‘technology experts and stakeholders’ who would be expected to believe that technology is going to make things better.
Recall Congress Now reports that
A New Jersey Appellate Court, in a March 16th unanimous ruling, paved the way for the first ever recall effort of a U.S. Senator. After originally being denied their constitutional right last September by the New Jersey Secretary of State for the circulation of petitions to recall Senator Menendez, The Committee to Recall Robert Menendez sued, taking their case to the New Jersey court…and won. The American Civil Rights Union (ACRU) was the only outside organization that filed an amicus brief with the Court supporting The Committee to Recall Senator Robert Menendez, the group formed by NJ Tea Parties United and the
Sussex County Tea Party.
Is this the sort of more efficient and response government we are looking for? I know that a lot of people would have liked to recall Sen. Lieberman here in Connecticut, but I worry that this moves us even further into a world of constant campaigning, paid for by the most wealthy and creating more gridlock in Washington.
To support the Project Vote has announced “the first mobile canvassing tool for Apple's iPad. This will increase voter registration and drastically reduce canvassing costs”. As a Nokia N900 user, I’d love to see this tool available on other platforms as well. The press release notes that “Currently only four states, Arizona, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington, support online voter registration”. Slowly, we are seeing that more and more government services are going online, and hopefully, move governments will use technology to improve their voter registration process, and make it easier to register online as well as easier to verify the legitimacy of the registrations.
Meanwhile, here in Connecticut, the battle over the future of the Citizen’s Election Program continues. The current Governor, who was elected before the program went into effect, wants to take over a quarter of the remaining funds in the program as part of the deficit mitigation efforts. Many express concern that cut of funding will force the program into insolvency. Perhaps everyone in the Governor’s office and the Legislature should take a 25% pay cut before we make that large a cut to the Citizen’s Election Program, since it is people that were elected prior to the program that have gotten us into this mess.
This again, returns to the latest Pew survey, where people noted that institutions are a strong resistance to change. Barry Wellman, of University of Toronto noted “Institutions know how to protect themselves.”
Will government be more efficient and responsive as a result of innovative forms of online cooperation? It would be great if that turns out to be the case, but the efforts of institutions to protect themselves significantly cast doubt on this.
April 10th
The Google Virtual Wave Biennial
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 04/10/2010 - 10:03It has been a while since I’ve written about Google Wave, Virtual Worlds, or for that matter the Whitney Biennial. However, since attending the Biennial with two of my daughters, I’ve been kicking around the idea for this blog post mashing up ideas from Google Wave, Virtual Worlds and the Whitney Biennial.
One of the things that jumped out at me as I looked at paintings in the Whitney was how different we approach the visual from the written. With the written word, we typically start at the beginning and follow read the material sequentially. As I’ve written about before, some people get bent out of shape when emails are not sequential, but the most important content is posted at the top of a reply, instead of at the bottom or interspersed in the email.
Google Wave was set up, in part, to address some of that and material is added at various appropriate points throughout the wave. To address the chronological sequence, Google Wave gives you the ability to playback a wave over time so you can see where the content fits, not only on the page, but in the time stream. Material is arranged in an order created by the artist. At the Whitney, it is typically shown over and over again, and people may walk in at the middle and only watch part of it, or may watch the end, followed by the beginning. Yet there is still a sequential aspect. The same applies to music.
While Google Wave does have the ability to add rich media content, it is predominantly text based and there does not seem to be much of intermixing sequential audio and sequential video content with the static text content. Likewise, the various pieces of content are not arranged spatially as they would be in a painting.
One way to expand the use of Google Wave for artistic expression would be to look at better interoperability with virtual worlds like Second Life or OpenSim. Imagine, for a moment, a virtual world where people could interact and not only add three dimensional models, but pictures, text, and music in a Google Wave style where you can playback the modifications in the order in which they were added.
To add to the spatial component, the scene could be presented more like a painting with the video, audio, or text being played back when the user moves the mouse over the content, so the viewer could start at whatever point and have more control over the experience.
It may be possible to do some of this already with virtual worlds, but I haven’t seen any good examples of this. With a system like that, some interesting installations could take place in a Google Virtual Wave Biennial. What do you think?
April 9th
The Design of Design
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 04/09/2010 - 09:46How does Frederick P. Brooks new book, The Design of Design: Essays from a Computer Scientist compare to his classic, The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, Anniversary Edition (2nd Edition)? How much time do I want to spend trying to find out?
These were questions I asked myself as I received an email from his publicist asking if I would review the new book. I decided that it was a book I wanted to review and I wanted to look at the whole book, and not just a sample chapter or portions online. As I noted before, I’m pretty picky about which books I take time to review, and while the new book might be really great, it could also be a big disappointment and not live up to the previous book. The Mythical Man-Month is a book of mythic proportions. It is a book that I used to require any developers working for me to read. It sits in a special place in my book case. It is a tough act to follow. Nonetheless, I took the plunge, and asked the publicist for a review copy of the new book, and I’m glad I did.
I received my copy of The Design of Design earlier this week. I’ve been taking time here and there to read it and still have a long way to go. However, I’ve read enough already to state that it deserves its place next to the Mythical Man-Month. It takes a broader view and is applicable not only to those of us working in computers, but to people involved in any sort of design. As an example, it provides a great contrast between computer design and other types of design such as architecture.
He starts off each chapter with various interesting quotes, and starts the first chapter with a quote from Francis Bacon:
[New ideas would come about] by a connexion and transferring of the observations of one Arte, to the uses of another, when the experience of several misteries shall fall under consideration of one mans minde.
I have always been fascinated by how new ideas come about as well as by the connections between people with different viewpoints. This is a book for a reading club with computer scientists, architects and fashion designers. (I would love to hear a fashion designer’s thoughts about this book.)
The question of where new ideas come from is one of those great questions that many great thinkers have pondered. The book seems to offer pointers in the right direction, but at least to me, the question remains somewhat intractable.
Brooks starts off by looking at a good look at the Rational Model of design. As I read through this section, my mind wandered to Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. In many ways, the Tractatus is to twentieth century philosophy what the Rational Model of design is to design.
The final proposition of the Tractatus is “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent”, and it seems as if something similar needs to be said of the Rational Model of design. Yet Wittgenstein went on to write the Philosophical Investigations, which explore so much more. Likewise, Brooks goes on to explore so much more in The Design of Design.
As Brooks explored the issues of the goals and desiderata of design, my mind wandered to the question of ‘What is Quality?’ It seems as if this book needs to be read alongside Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
Another diversion my mind took as I read this was thinking about how both the Mythical Man Month, as well as The Design of Design relates to what is going on in the world of the Nokia N900, and for that matter in the broader areas of Linux development and cellphone development. When you get right down to it, the IBM System 360 was a much less powerful computer than the Nokia N900. Yet the System 360 went through a design process that everyone refers back to. What has the design process for the Nokia N900 really been like? What about the design process for Maemo or MeeGo?
Readers may suggest that these are very different situations, it is like comparing a The Cathedral and the Bazaar. I think this is an important point. The System 360 is a Cathedral and everything going on with cellphones, tablets, slates and Linux is a Bazaar. The Design of Design needs to take its place in the special section of beloved books wedged between Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and The Cathedral and the Bazaar.
Over the next few weeks, I expect The Design of Design will color my thinking about various topics I write about here. You should go out and get the book, read it, and share your thoughts.
April 8th
Connecticut Blogs
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 04/08/2010 - 14:28Five years ago, I worked as the ‘BlogMaster’ for John DeStefano’s Gubernatorial campaign. I left that position to become the technology coordinator for Ned Lamont’s U.S. Senate bid in 2006. One of the things that I tried to do in both positions was to reach out the bloggers across Connecticut. I sought to include not only the most obvious political bloggers, but bloggers of all types.
Things have changed a lot since then. I can’t find my old contact lists from back then, and I suspect even if I did, many of the email addresses have changed, people have moved, or perhaps given up blogging altogether. Meanwhile, lots of new bloggers have joined the Connecticut Blogosphere and in various areas niches have developed.
A couple weeks, I attended a bloggers meeting with Ned Lamont. It was a small group of political bloggers whom have all known one another for quite a while. Since writing about this, I’ve been in touch with various campaigns that are interested in reaching out to bloggers. With that, I started to review some of the different Connecticut blogs I pay attention to.
Here are links to some of them:
Political blogs
It can be tough to decide who to list. Different blogs have different frequency of updating. Some are attempting to be more like professional news organizations. Others are opinion pages.
Some of the blogs in the political realm, in no particular order, are:
MyLeftNutmeg
Connecticut Blog
HatCityBLOG
CTBob
Cool Justice
The 40 Year Plan
Only in Bridgeport
CT Voters Count
Drink Liberal
YourCT
Lon Seidman
CT Blue Blog
Connecticut Political Reporter
Saramerica
Spazeboy
CT Working Families
NBPolticus
The Pragmatic Progressive
CT At Work
Lists
Various sites aggregate other blogs. Some of my posts show up on the Journal Inquirer. Others show up at the Record Journal blog list. Some also show up on other technology and marketing blogs beyond Connecticut. One of the best lists of Connecticut blogs is CT Weblogs
New Haven
The New Haven Register has recently reached out to a group of bloggers with their Community Media Lab
Some of these blogs include:
CT MMA News
Lockets Meadow
Budget Babe
Sound Bounder
Tagan’s Kitchen
Tom Ficklin
Some other interesting New Haven blogs include
New Haven Kids
On the road to greenness
Tomatoes on the vine
tasing-threesixfive
Satorial Sidelines
TristanRobin
Yalieyoonjoo
Hartford
I haven’t explored the Hartford area blogs as much recently, but I thought I’d highlight a few:
Mira Hartford Urban Compass
Live In Hartford
Misc
Some random other Connecticut blogs worth checking include:
Harvesting CT
This Sphere
Nutmeggrater
CT Energy
CT Green Scene
CT Smart Growth
Greenwich Blog
CT Real Estate Unleashed
Kate Rothwell
Grampy’s World
Moomette’s Magnificents
Frugal New England Kitchen
The Savvy Seller
Sweeties Sweeps
Touchd Blog
Mama Rucci
Beverly Kaye Gallery.
So, are you another Connecticut blogger? Are you interested in connecting? Exchanging links etc? I’ve recently been tweaking my site so I have different links showing up on different pages depending on your interests, you can link to just my Connecticut pages or my Politics pages and I can reciprocate appropriately.
Update: I've had some good emails with various bloggers and have updated the list to add several new sites. In addition, I'm now thinking of adding Connecticut125, as a list of sites that participate in various 125x125 exchanges. If you're interested, let me know.
Memory and Desire
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 04/08/2010 - 10:32April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Monday morning, I drove down Fountain Street to a hearing in New Haven. At Ramsdell, the traffic got bad. A city bus had stopped to pick up passengers and a long line of cars trying to make the light blocked the box. When my turn came, I joined the procession and as we made our way down Fountain Street, I noticed cars in front of me and behind putting on their flashers. Managing to look further down the road, I saw two limousines in the lead. I had managed to join a cortege. At a convenient spot I pulled over to let the cars full of mourners regroup.
At Whalley Avenue, I glanced up Fitch Street. Police cars were arriving and a young woman in distress sat on the ground next to a car in the middle of the street. The windshield was shattered. A man sat with her providing comfort. The light changed and I was on my way again. If Caesar’s soothsayers had been with me, they might have pointed to these as warnings for the day to come. My friends with more cheery dispositions might have told me these were reminders that things could be much worse. Either way, I continued on the road destiny had set for me.
Wednesday came, and it seemed as if we were thrust unprepared into summer, surprising us with unexpected record heat. I went to Wesleyan to hear Larry Lessig talk about the wrongs of corporate speech. Memory and desire mixed as I traipsed across the college campus. Students sat on Foss Hill, enjoying the summerlike weather as they talked about their studies, their dreams, their loves, or just nothing at all.
Wesleyan has a beautiful campus and it reminded me of my Alma Mater, especially those spring days when it was just too hard to study. My thirtieth reunion is rapidly approaching.
I saw the young professors with their own desires, perhaps hoping for a student that would love their subject material as much as they do. “Someone had blundered”. Mr. Ramsey, in ‘To The Lighthouse’ cannot reach ‘R’. I had once dreamed of being a philosophy professor on a campus like this yet the design of my life did not turn out that way. “Memory and desire”.
Design. Have I ended up in a small rental house in Woodbridge, CT by design? By some sort of fate? By some set of decisions; some good, some bad? And what is around the next corner? I’m thinking much more about design as I read Frederick Brooks new book, The Design of Design. It is a great book which I will write a review of soon, and which is shaping some of my current thinking.
As I sit at my computer writing, Simon and Garfunkel’s “Kathy’s Song” comes on Pandora.
My mind's distracted and diffused
My thoughts are many miles away
…
I don't know why I spend my time
Writing songs I can't believe
All of this is a long path to Lessig’s talk. Larry is a great speaker. I had heard parts of what he has said before, just as during various campaigns, I could recite stump speeches of candidates that I was supporting. Other parts were new to me. A key thought emerged to me, what sort of country were our forefathers trying to design when they wrote our founding documents? What sort of country are our leaders today trying to design? Are they even thinking about the master design of our country?
Lessig spoke about the Constitution’s framers concern about Princes.
No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.
Yet Congress seems all too willing to accept presents from the Princes of Wall Street and the Kings of the Health Care Industry.
“mixing memory and desire” Lessig’s talk seemed well designed to mix memory and create a desire for a country where our leaders are not dependent on the lobbyists and the special interests they represent.
Will it make any difference? Can the path of our republic be changed? What might a change mean for our economy? For taxes? For Government Services? For you and for me? It is hard to tell.
“The answer my friend is blowin in the wind.”
