Crowdsourcing is definitely an interesting concept, and there have been a few successes and a few failures over the past couple of years. One of the most interesting was Cambrian House, a platform for crowdsourcing business ideas. Conceptually, it was very cool. And although it has not survived in its initial incarnation, it was an experiment that had to happen. I'm grateful to have been one of the participants in the community, because it has opened up several possibilities that I would never have been aware of otherwise. However, it is time to make way for something better.
"VenCorps brings together the power of collaborative innovation and venture capital VenCorps taps into the global community to discover, fund and grow cost-efficient startups with world-changing ideas. VenCorps connects founders, funders and facilitators together in a community of shared interest: startup success.
VenCorps is a program of Spencer Trask Collaborative Venture Partners. Winners of the VenCorps Startup Showdowns will receive funds anchored by Spencer Trask along with founders, funders and facilitators."
I've already started to get involved, and can't wait to see what comes out of it. Already I'm seeing this as a distillation of the ideas that were tried with Cambrian House into a much more powerful system.
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We always have choices, and the continuum can be easily segregated into three areas. We can get out of bed every morning and take the actions necessary achieve excellence. We can muddle through the day and accept mediocre results. Or we can spend our time complaining about the situation, doing nothing and being forced to accept whatever we get.
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Cringley is asking a very lucid question that more people in the upper-echelons of business today should be asking: "What Does Gartner Really Do?" Leaving aside the fact that I agree completely with the author's derision of these research firms' "real function being to provide $2 billion worth of IT management CYA per year", A couple of points got me thinking.
First there's this:
"How often do these consultants tell their customers that everything is fine and no action is required? Almost never. In fact I'm tempted to say "absolutely never" simply because I haven't heard of such an instance, but I'm playing it safe here."
The consultants he is referring to are the research firm analysts. There are a lot of good I.T. Consultants out there doing good work and providing a valuable service by, at times, preventing their cilents from spending money they shouldn't on the latest and greatest buzz-word technology. I can say absolutely that I have indeed told clients NOT to spend money on things they don't need and won't or can't use. (I'm a flawed consultant, driven by the ideal of helping clients rather than increasing my own sales. That's probably why I don't work for any consulting firm but my own.)
But the bigger issue is one of professionalism. Cringely is right that many I.T. workers are clueless about the technology they're working with. There is no professional standard (no, A+ certification doesn't count here) and no independent, credible organization conferring a professional accreditation to I.T. pros. Unless you have a masters degree or better in Computer Science and/or engineering, there's no way to measure your skill set against any other. Most business leaders would be amazed to learn how many people with the title CIO or CTO can't keep their VCR clock from blinking 12:00 continuously. (Be even more frightened that in 2008 CIO's and CTO's still even HAVE VCR's in their homes!)
Which brings up the question of just what measurable qualifications could and should be included to provide an I.T. professional with quantifiable recognition such as medical doctors and Certified Public Accountants. If we came up with that list, updated on an annual basis to stay current with the latest technology, rest assured that the only people qualifying would not be the types who look good for the photos included in the glossy annual report.
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This situation has been a long time in coming, and I've been angry for years at the state of the U.S. Code and the absolutely arcane state of it currently. Instead of going off on a rant about how we A. need to burn the U.S. Code back to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and start over and B. need to prevent lawyers from becoming legislators (inherent conflict of interest), I'll just present this revealing piece with minimum commentary.
This Twitter thing is getting out of hand. I've been in technology for a long time, and while I've never been a 1st tier early adapter, I am and have been on the front lines and usually in the second or third wave of the early adopter set on the Internet. I still don't completely get Twitter, and I probably won't any time soon because I'm not immersed on a minute-by-minute basis in the minute expansions and contractions of the bubble as people inside the echo chambers of the Web2.0 startup/VC/media crowd are. Read: I don't have enough friends and/or colleagues on the bleeding edge to make this limited service useful to me. A brilliant intern last summer showed me the tumblog he and a friend had built in RoR, and I was impressed with the functionality, but the only way I could imagine the usefullness of such a thing would be with widespread adoption. Twitter has apparently reached the first-stage critical mass that it's a phemonenon inside the echo chamber, but remains unknown and relatively useless to the world at large - including the vast majority of the population with broadband access.
But being in the industry (if not in the beating heart of it), I pay attention. Recently I've been seeing more and more conversations decrying the state of Twitter and whether it will survive, what should be done to make sure it survives and whether it should survive at all in its current incarnation. Articles such as this one at TechCrunch with it's obvious allusion to drug addiction are increasingly disturbing. If you thought information addiction was a problem before, the instantaneous gratification provided by Twitter is as crack is to the cocaine of an always on broadband connection and good feed reader. Some people need to take a step back and get some perspective.
Having said that, I can see how this is potentially game changing. The way that Microsoft's Live Mesh is moving things to the next level of connectivity is going to be useful for a vast majority of people. I have already used Live Mesh in my first 3 days of being signed up to ease the transfer of data and information for both work and personal needs. Twitter, on the other hand, requires either an established community requiring such real-time connection and/or a perceived need to be able to follow and be part of specific conversations surrounding specific topics. It's not for the masses...yet.
The problems that Steve Gilmour references in his article are specific to the current user base, but they do not address what I believe will be necessary to make it useful to the population at large. I'll try to refrain from further social commentary here, but thinking out loud on the topic produces a few ideas on how to make it so.
To make the 'platform' useful to the general population (considering the technical limitations that Twitter has experienced) it will indeed need to be decentralized. Gilmour speaks of namespace issues and he is correct in doing so, but with the increasing adoption of OpenID, I believe his fears may be unfounded. It comes back to control of an online identity (or several), and that is precisely the problem that OpenID is intended to solve. Critical mass of the size required to take it mainstream might easily be found by tapping the existing userbase of IM networks.
What if...one were to create an OpenID based login that could simultaneously publish to multiple IM networks with a simple tick box to include a comment into the Twitter network. OpenID providers could be convinced to offer Twitter message hosting as a feature/incentive, thus obviating the need for a central network and thus avoid the outages recently experienced. Include a multiple network client such as Pidgin and you have a ready-made solution based on existing technology.
With the level of adoption this expansion could foster, we might very well introduce the benefits of this kind of communication across the Internet as a whole and bring whole new sets of users into the conversation. Then, I could see the appeal - as would millions of others.
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I'm ashamed for Ben Stein that he was involved so deeply with this.The interview tactics and editing techniques used as well as thelogical fallacies presented are worthy of Michael Moore, and what (until now) I would have considered far beneath Mr. Stein.
All these arguments are separate from whether or not the science surrounding evolution or ID is any good (which SHOULD be the pre-requisite for it being taught in schools).I suppose with all the bad science getting popular press and support as part of the global warming scam, the proponents of ID must think there's a chance for them to achieve similar acceptance.Apparently, Mr. Stein saw how lucrative this kind of hucksterism has been for Al Gore, and wanted to get in on the action.
Whether you choose to spell truth with a capital "T" or not, the facts remain.The 'theory' of evolution is good science because it can be, and has been, tested and refined time and again. Indeed, it continues to be thus.You cannot produce a valid test for the theory of intelligent design.Belief in it is therefore religion, and NOT science, and has no place being taught in a science curriculum.If you insist that creationism be taught, teach it right alongside the dozens of other religious theories for the origins of life.
Not exactly an unbiased source, but at least balanced vs. the film's propaganda: Expelled Exposed
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No, seriously. They are already working on functional, fashionable wearable computing platforms - this would make it easy. Any temperature issues are already minimized by the properties of the graphene circuits, the insulating properties of aerogels make that whole line of problems a non-issue. Lower power consumption: check. And the density of the circuits available...wow. I could conceivably run a computer that could defeat BlueGene at chess...in my shorts.
They're already working on display technologies with graphene, but consider an artificial eye. If we replace nature's aqueous humor with this circuitry infused aerogel, how small could we make the current computing rigs required for the latest artificial vision projects?
Just the tip of the iceberg, if you ask me.
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Here we are again in the season of treachery and Irish saints. This year, my friends in Anonymous have decided to add a few more reasons to celebrate.
The full press release:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
ANONYMOUS PREPARE FOR ANOTHER WORLDWIDE PROTEST AGAINST THE CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY
CLEARWATER, FLORIDA. March 8, 2008 — As Project Chanology continues, thousands of people worldwide will stage a protest on March 15th against the Church of Scientology's corruption, and abuse of its members and critics. The group Anonymous, will picket at local Church of Scientology centers around the world, beginning at 11 a.m. local time in each respective time zone. Anonymous has been increasing awareness for the cause, whilst simultaneously acquiring and spreading new information about the Church of Scientology obtained from their increasing number of informants within the organization, as part of its campaign to "systematically dismantle the Church of Scientology in it's present form".
A number of former Scientology members who had previously been afraid to give their own testimonies for fear of retribution from church officials have joined the movement, and a number of new websites informing the public about Scientology have been launched. Of special note is ExScientologyKids.com[1], known as "ESK" within the critic community. The ESK website is owned and administered by Kendra Wiseman, Astra Woodcraft and Jenna Miscavige-Hill. All three women are former members who grew up in Scientology, and are related to high ranking officials of the Church of Scientology and its associated front-groups. Kendra Wiseman is the daughter of the President of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR)[2], and niece of the President of Narconon[3]. Jenna Miscavige-Hill is the niece of the Chairman of the Board of Religious Technology Center (RTC) David Miscavige, who is generally considered to be the "Leader" of the Church of Scientology.
Both Kendra and Jenna have been "disconnected" by their family since leaving the church. Astra, whose mother is a high-ranking Sea Org[4] member, fled the Sea Org when they insisted she terminate her pregnancy. ESK tells these stories, and the stories of many other former Scientology children. Kendra Wiseman has said that in light of the recent efforts of Anonymous, and because of the efforts of those who have supported her over the last two years while she dealt with her families disconnection from her, she has been made to feel safe in speaking out and now wants to afford the same luxury to others, who may not feel as safe. Douglas Frantz, a former editor at the L.A. Times who has covered Scientology for the New York Times in the 1990s has said "Before this Internet onslaught, they were always able to go after their critics and do a good job of being able to discredit or intimidate them"[5].
The date of the March 15th Protest, referred to as "Operation Party Hard" and "The Ides of March" has been chosen as it falls near a major Scientology holiday, the birthday of Church founder L. Ron Hubbard. The 15th also marks the death of Ellie Perkins, a Scientologist who was killed by her son Jeremy. Jeremy, a sufferer of the disease of schizophrenia was denied Psychiatric drugs, and was instead treated with vitamins and auditing[6]. Anonymous intends to continue its campaign to educate the public about the true nature of the Church of Scientology; with the March 15th protest, and future events such as Operation Reconnect.
Scheduled to take place during April, Operation Reconnect[7] will shine a spotlight on families torn apart by the Church of Scientology. The aim is to bring these families together, with a number of the "disconnected" giving detailed accounts of their experience with Scientology and making public pleas to their families to "reconnect" with them.
On the 15th of March, Anonymous intends to bring "cake, good will and the gift of knowledge." As usual, Anonymous have contacted and worked with city officials to ensure safe and law-abiding protests. Many protesters will wear masks, scarves and other facial obstructions to protect their identities due to organization’s practice of intimidating and silencing those that speak out against it.
Anonymous is a collective composed of many Internet users, combined under one name. The group have gained influence both on the Internet and in the real world. Anonymous have launched campaigns against various White Supremacy entities, and played a major role in the capture of Canadian pedophile Chris Forcand. Anonymous has been referred to as a "Cyber Vigilante Group" by The Toronto Sun[8], "Internet Activists" by The Economist[9], "the latest thorn in Scientology's side" by Newsweek[10] and "cyber-terrorists...reminiscent of Al Qaeda spreading anti-American hatred and calling for U.S. destruction" by the "Church" of Scientology[5].
The United States has joined China and Thailand in attempting to censor Wikileaks, however the site itself goes on.
A Californian judge ruled that Dynadot, the name registrar for Wikileaks.org, should remove all traces of Wikileaks from its servers and further should “prevent the domain name from resolving to the wikileaks.org website or any other website or server other than a blank park page, until further order of this Court.” The ruling followed an application from Bank Julius Baer, a Swiss bank named by Wikileaks as being involved in money laundering, to have documents relating to the company removed from the site.
Although Wikileaks has lost its URL, the site is hosted in Sweden, and is still up at 88.80.13.160/wiki/Wikileaks. Unfortunately for Bank Julius Baer, the legal action will probably result in more people reading the documents in question.
Something is rotten in the state of California. Even more than usual. I'm urging anyone and everyone to visit the Wikileaks site and, like responsible citizens of the world, and the Internet, come to your own conclusions.
From this article earlier, we get a brief and accurate analysis of what should be very disturbing about this.
While it's understandable that the bank might not want those documents online, or that those documents might impact current litigation, that doesn't explain why the California court ordered the entire site offline, demanded that its registrar block the transfer of the domain, force the registrar to point all visitors to a blank page and also having the registrar hand over all information on IP addresses of people who accessed the wikileaks site. All of that seems rather excessive, and of questionable legality. After all, doesn't Section 230 of the CDA provide safe harbor for the service provider?
What country, and what period in history is this? No day in court? No opportunity to move the domain registry? I want to know who this judge is, and I believe it incumbent upon concerned Internet citizens (and, indeed, U.S. citizens) to out this judge with an appallingly flawed understanding of the law.
Despite the ruling, Wikileaks continues to host the sensitive documents from servers located outside the U.S. Coincidentally, or not, the organization's hosting center in Sweden was also struck by a denial-of-service attack, after which a fire erupted in the center as well. Attempts to reach Wikileaks to obtain more information were unsuccessful.
I wonder how long before my friends in Anonymous get hold of this?
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