How to screw up on the first day of class

This fall, I volunteered to participate in a pilot of a software package called "Blackboard Collaborate".  This software is designed to facilitate web conferencing and web lecturing for online students.  I decided to use it in my face-to-face class to capture the student questions and my responses, and then provide it to my online students in recorded form.  They were invited to the real-time session as well, but since many of the online students are working, none took me up on the offer. 

So on my first day of class and my first real experience with Blackboard Collaborate, I totally screwed up.  I spent a couple days prior to class testing the program (including finding a bug in the system).  I thought I knew what to do for the first day of class.  When I got to class, I tested my microphone.  It worked.  I started the program and tested the session recording.  It worked.  Everything looked good!  I then proceeded to talk for the entire hour about the course.  What did I forget?  Well apparently, there is a "Talk" button that allows the microphone sounds to be recorded by the Collaborate Session.  While practicing prior to class, I ran into the same issue, but apparently, it didn't sink in. 

Luckily, I caught the problem quickly and I was able to record a second version of my lecture in my office immediately after the class.  I also informed the students about the problem.

Lesson learned:  No matter how many times you test, something will go wrong when it matters. 
Second lesson:  When things go wrong, don't cry about it.  Just apologize and fix it as soon as possible.  Most people will appreciate your honesty.

Two great podcasts

Over the past month, I have started to listen to two great podcasts - Internet Business Mastery and Smart Passive Income.  Both deal with building website businesses, with slightly different foci, but with great content.  What I love about these two podcasts is their integrated discussions of web technologies and business.  That's right up my alley.  In fact, I see a confluence in my teaching, research, and financial goals.  Awesome.  My brain is swimming with ideas.  All I need now is to execute.

Next actions:

1. Complete business plan
2. Review business plan with Master mind group
3. Complete training concept map
4. Review concept map with other professionals
5. Research search keywords and domain names that match my business idea
6. Buy domain name and hosting service
7. Buy high quality microphone
8. Build site
9. Record killer training videos
10. Post videos
11. Market like crazy
12. Build more killer content
13. Repeat 9-12

Publishing to multiple blogs

I'm looking for some ideas.

In my web development class, I want our students to create their own blog in order to write weekly posts about class topics and in order for manipulation in later assignments.  But I would also like those same posts to appear on a separate class blog.  The class blog will consolidate all of the individual posts into a centralized location, besides providing additional resources for our students.  So I'm trying to discover the best set of technologies for easily setting up this framework. 

Requirements:

• The class blog already exists as a WordPress custom install. No decision has been made on the student blog platform, but I'm leaning towards Blogger for easy integration with Google AdSense.
• The final solution has to be a free and web based.
• It has to be easy to set up and use for my students as most of them are not familiar with web publishing yet.
• It requires minimal effort on my part.

Ideas I have looked into:

• WordPress allows remote publishing with either ATOM or XML-RPC.  So the capability should be there for some sort automated solution.
• Ping.fm does allow publishing to multiple blogs.  The down side is that it does not contain a WYSIWYG editor and may require more set up skills than the students have at this point.
• I'm still researching if FeedBurner can accomplish what I want.  It may require installation of a widget feed reader on the class blog.  Not ideal because of the time it would require of me to setup and maintain.
• Microsoft Word has attempted to integrate Blog writing into the software, but I've had difficulties getting it to work with Blogger.  I haven't tried it with WordPress.  And since Word is not web based, I would prefer to stay away from it.
• I could just require students to copy and paste posts in two places. Bad for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the time involved on their part.

Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions?

The tale of two passions

What should you do when you can't decide between two equally passionate directions for your career?  For many of us, there are many things we could do that would make us happy.  Sometimes, you can whittle down that list to one or two great passions.  Sometimes a great opportunity comes along that diverges from your current career.  What happens when you cannot decide between your two highest passions.  Should you do both?  Unfortunately, splitting your efforts between two careers usually ends up with failure in both.  The more directed and focused you can be in your career, the greater success you will reach along with a deeper happiness from a job well done.  So, how can one decide?  Here is I dealt with this issue.

First the background.  For a while now, I have struggled with deciding between two different career tracks.  I attempted to integrate those passions in my career as an academic, but I am still drawn to specializing in one or the other.  Both passions fall in line with my central purpose in life.  Both passions have long-term viability in my career as an academic.  Both have potential for a consulting/expert business beyond academy.  The first of these passions is to think, write, and educate about making decisions using applied philosophy, particularly extending Objectivism's moral and epistemological foundations.  The second passion is to think, write, and educate about making decisions for developing a web presence, particularly with emerging web technologies.  I have tried, unsuccessfully, for the past couple months to decide which career tracks offers the most potential happiness and financial gain. 

Here is how I propose to deal with this dilemma.

For a short time, I will do both - equally.  I will set up two dueling frameworks.  Two blogs, two twitter accounts, and two facebook pages interconnected so that I can hit maximum exposure of my ideas with minimal effort.  I will then set up dual marketing schemes, targeted at the appropriate audiences.  Then I will proceed to blog once a week in each framework and post status updates/ micro-blog 5 times a week for one month.  At the end of the first month, I will evaluate three things for both passions 1. market response 2. difficulty in finding and writing content and 3. how much did I enjoy the process.  The last of which being the most important.  If there is no clear winner after the first month, I will continue for a second month and re-evaluate again - perhaps even a third and fourth month, if needed.  I need to convenience myself which career track focus will create the greatest enduring value for me.  The other passion will be regulated to a hobby.

While I am in a unique position to try both career tracks simultaneously, not everyone has that luxury.  In cases where decisions have to made quickly (as in the case of once in a lifetime opportunities that expire in a few days), developing a weighted average matrix might help.  Essentially, that is what I'm doing, but collecting real data rather than just estimates.  In a weighted average matrix, you first identify the most important criteria to be used in your decision.  If you were buying a house, you might identify criteria such as size, location, layout, etc.  Then, for each criteria, you provide a weight as to how important that criteria is compared to the other criteria.  Size might be 50% of your decision, location might be 25%, layout might be 10% and so on.  After you have thought through how important each criteria is, you look at each option and measure how well it meets each criteria.  When exact measures cannot be found, best guess estimates have to suffice.  You put these measurements into a matrix and calculate the weighted average.  The option with the highest score is the winner.

Steam boats 'r' us

Yesterday, I had the crazy idea of making a steam boat with my kids.  It all started the night before, when I told my two boys a bedtime story about James Watt and his invention of the steam engine.  I thought it would be cool if they could see a real working steam engine.  Even better - if they could build one themselves.  Well, I discovered that with a little work and perseverance I could build one and they could enjoy watching it run.

Around 9:30 this morning, I found this great set of instructions online.  And by great, I mean so super awesome, that I can't say enough about how useful they were.  There are written instructions, video instructions, printable cut outs, history lessons, and more.   The instructions were so well done that I made a working putt-putt boat on my first try!  Since this was supposed to be a project with the kids, I rounded up my three little ones and dragged them to 3 different stores to find all the materials.  The materials weren't that expensive, especially since some of the things could have been recycled - soda cans, soda bottles, and orange juice boxes (I didn't have any of those handy so I bought some soda and orange juice which were enjoyed later).  Other things you need around the house - scissors, epoxy, hot glue gun, ruler, marker, small candle (either birthday or tea candles will do), a stick for spreading epoxy, and straws.

After lunch we set to work.  I downed a can of diet Dr. Pepper so that we could build the engine.  After lots of cutting, folding, and gluing, we finally had a working aluminum engine.  My two eldest kids (6 and 4 years old) helped for the first hour or so, but wandered off after they realized it was going to take a long time.  And as much as I wanted them to participate, I also recognized that most of the steps required skills beyond their capabilities (but then again, I've under estimated their skills before).  Now that I know the steps, I would be more comfortable helping them complete their own engines next time.

The technology behind a putt-putt engine is pretty simple.  Essentially, it's a steam engine.  As the water heats up inside the metal engine, it turns to steam.  The pressure from the steam becomes so intense that eventually a bubble is forced down the straw and out the back of the boat, pushing the boat forward. When the bubble escapes, cool water rushes back in providing fresh material heating material for more steam.  Since the water flowing out is moving faster than the water flowing back in, the boat moves forward.  The "putting" or "popping" noise comes from the expansion and contraction of the flat aluminum side as the steam expands and contracts.  There are silent versions of this engine using coiled copper tubes, but I could not find the right sized tubes at Lowes.  Maybe next time.

As you can see from this video, the kids loved watching it run.


Just another fun activity dads can do with their kids!

GTD Habits

A friend of mine posted an article recently about the dangers of blaming technology for a failure in your productivity system.  In this case, the system is Getting Things Done (GTD).  What's more important is establishing the habits of GTD and using technology to supplement those habits.  This struck home for me a bit because I found myself recently fiddling with a couple different technology solutions for GTD and not being fully satisified with any of them.  I kept telling myself that if I could just find that right tool, everything would be honky-dory.  Well, that just isn't true. 

After reading about how to integrate GTD with Outlook and OneNote, I have optimized my technology solution as much as I care to for now and want to focus on improving my habits.  So here are the habits I'm currently focusing on and specific practices I've identified to help me with them.

Daily habits

• Adding to my inbox. Practice - I need to keep OneNote open all the time to help me improve my useage of it. I may also need to start creating items in my OneNote inbox from emails. I'm still struggling with capturing everything here and need to focus more on developing habits for centrally grabbing all thoughts.
• Clearing my inbox. Practice - My email inbox I will clear 2-3 times a day. My OneNote inbox will be cleared once a day.

Weekly habits - Perform weekly review every Monday morning

• Ensure my week's goals move me toward my month and year goals.  Practice - created pages in OneNote for monthly and yearly goals.  Created subpages under month goals for each new week.
• Ensure that I am making progress on each project.  Practice - where I am not waiting for somebody, verify that I have a next action item in the weekly goals

I am adding reminders in Outlook to keep reviewing my progress with these habits.

There are also some habits that I know I will eventually need to improve, but they are lower priority to the ones above.  Once the above habits are working and ingrained in my system, I will work on the following issues:

• How often should I review "Someday/Maybe" items?
• How can I use eletronic references most effectively?
• How can I best plan projects within this framework?

With a bit of applied focus, I am confident I can improve these habits and my overall productivity.

Smart phones - Not just for workouts anymore

So this is nothing new to everyone with smart phones, but I absolutely love how the phone integrates with every part of my life.  Entertainment, productivity, relaxation, communication, shopping, organization, navigation, and - workouts.  I found this great app called Endomondo that tracks my GPS position while I go for bike rides (I could use if for any sport if I wanted too).  I just start the app, throw the phone in my bike bag, and starting pedaling.  Ever few seconds, it plots my position and the length of time it took me to travel to that position so that I have an accurate record of my entire trip.  The data is saved to Endomondo's web site so that I can review the trip when complete.  It correlates my location with road maps and topographical maps so that I can assess speeds on hills, going around corners, stop lights, and what not.

After my latest ride, I uploaded my workout to Facebook then went inside to review it.  I was shocked to discover that my fastest mile was almost 55 minutes after I started.  While I remember that mile as being fast, I didn't think it would compete with my first few miles when I was fresh and hitting some higher gears.  Its just awesome that I can do this.  I wish I had this technology back in college when I was training for triathlons.  Of course, I may start training again.  And now with tools to get the most out of my workouts! 

You gotta love today's technology and our industrial progress.

Destroyer of Edison

I just finished reading "Wizard of Menlo Park: How Thomas Alva Edison Invented the Modern World" by Randall Stross.  And I must say, it was horrible.  I must emphatically do not recommend it.  The reason - Mr. Stross seems determined throughout the book to tear down Edison, to find every fault (real or imagined) and detail how Edison was not amazing.  Instead of reading about how Edison was able to achieve over 1000 patents in his lifetime, you read about how Edison was not a good businessman, not a good husband, not a good father, not a good friend, not a good philanthropist, and not a good employer.  You will read about how Edison over promised results, became insufferably conceited, sought after publicity, claimed credit for inventions he didn't create, and made hundreds (if not thousands) of bad decisions.  Stross meticulously documents every negative newspaper article printed throughout Edison's lifetime.  In every case where there are two possible explanations for Edison's behavior, Stross writes about the most negative one.  One has to wonder why Stross would want to write this biography.

What was noticeably absent was a detailed discussion of Edison's genius, of his innovative capacity, of his independence in thought, of his confidence in his own abilities, of his prodigous work ethic, or of his experience creating the world's first industrial laboratory.  It wasn't until the last chapter of the book that Stross even discusses the enormous values created from Edison's inventions, spawning several multi-billion dollar industries by the time of Edison's death in the 1930s.  But even then, Stross is quick to point out that Edison's net worth was only estimated at $12 million when he died, just in case you were not convinced of Edison's poor business skills.

All-in-all, this anti-hero book should be regulated to obscurity.  This destroyer of the greatness in Edison should be trashed and forgotten.  I regret the money I spent on it and will post most of this review to Amazon and B&N in hopes that others can avoid the same regret.

So now I am on a search for a biography to cleanse my mind.  If anyone knows of a biography about Thomas Edison that is positive and uplifting, I would love to hear about it.

Division of time management tools

After much searching, I've come to the conclusion that the system I use for productivity must encompass multiple tools.  It just can't be done with anything less.  Over the last year, I kept hoping that I would find that one product that could accomplish everything I want in an easy to use package.  That just is not going to happen.

Once I came to that realization, I started asking myself what multiple set of tools I can use to stay organized and efficient in getting things done with the least amount of effort.  I will need to have at least 2, one for general time management and organization, and one for documents and notes.

After reading a series of posts on using OneNote and Outlook for implementing GTD , and reflecting on my situation, I've become more and more sold on the notion of using these two tools for more fully implementing GTD.  I considered using EverNote instead of OneNote.  They are both powerful tools and very comparable.  However, OneNote has better integration with Outlook.  Evernote has better portability to other platforms, but the only non-Windows platform I own is my Android phone, and Evernote did not work very well on that OS.  The bigger change for me will be moving back to Outlook after using Google Gmail, Calendar, Contacts, and Tasks for the last few years.  Its a difficult considering how many emails, contacts, and calendar items I've accumulated over the that time.  My main reason for moving to the Google platform was for the ability to move between computers seamlessly.  But with the new tablet PC issued to me by my university, running Windows 7, and fully installed with Microsoft products and Microsoft Live Mesh, I can do my mobile computing and my desktop computing entirely on a Microsoft platform.  Considering I have struggled using the Google platform for implementing GTD (not that you can't), and considering the integrative features of the Microsoft products, it may well be worth my time to transition back to Outlook.  Heck, I may even use IE again!  How crazy is that?

I very much want to implement a system quickly so that I can move forward with being productive and not waste time contemplating, reviewing, and researching tools.  That's where the above article comes in so handy.  Everything is laid out.  I can implement my own few variations, but overall, everything is there for me to start using the same system.  The major thing left for me to decide is how best to manage my transition.  I may still use gmail for personal email and contacts, since it would be easier than trying to get all 200 of my contacts to change their contact info.  But all work related organization and task management will be placed in Outlook and OneNote.

On IT Business Value

Today, I was reading an academic article that defined information technology (IT) business value as the organizational performance impacts of information technology at both the intermediate process level and the organization-wide level, and comprising both efficiency impacts and competitive impacts (IT and Organizational Performance, MISQ, 2004, Melville, Kraemer, and Gurbaxani).  This definition did not satisfy me as an adequate representation of this concept.  In this post, I will attempt to think through my definition of IT business value and its relation to Objectivist ethics, so that I might apply it to an article I am writing.  As a thinking post, please consider feedback most welcome.  My ideas are not finalized on this topic.

Organizational performance strikes me as part of a larger concept for business value.  There is also missing a direction of the impact.  Impacts can obviously be good and bad.  Can we legitimately call it a value if the impact is bad?  I don't think we can.

To address organization impact, lets look at a root concept - business.  The purpose of business is to facilitate the creation of value for trading partners by systematically organizing resources for the production of goods and services.  Businesses are not transient one-time events, nor are they disorganized mobs of traders.  Businesses have a definitive boundary within which individuals interact in an organized fashion.  Business value can take on multiple meanings, depending on with whom you refer.  Business value can refer to the value-added process for a product that the business sells.  Business value can refer to shareholder wealth created from the business growth and profits.  Business value can also refer to the overall fitness or long-term sustainability of the business as a whole.  It is to this last notion of business value that I believe is most comprehensive context.  Using value in this way implies a relationship to ethical values.

As Ayn Rand described values:

It is only a living organism that faces a constant alternative: the issue of life or death. Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action. If an organism fails in that action, it dies; its chemical elements remain, but its life goes out of existence. It is only the concept of ‘Life’ that makes the concept of ‘Value’ possible. It is only to a living entity that things can be good or evil.

In business, a similar constant alternative exists, the life or death of the business.  Business processes consists of generated and sustaining actions.  If the business dies, the people and resources remain, but its existence as such is gone.  It is only the concept of business life that makes the concept of business value possible.  Lest we take this analogy too far, businesses are sufficiently different in that they can be created by men, can be willfully destroyed by men, and can be recreated by men if they so desire.  So it is not self-generated action.  It is composed of many individuals acting together in mutually agreed upon ways, trading products and services with each other.

But, when entrepreneurs create a business, they generally do so with the purpose of continuing the business indefinitely.   Ethical values only refers to those values created for the individual, but in the entrepreneur's case, the business becomes an extension of the entrepreneur's value system.  The business value refers directly to value to the entrepreneur.  As the entrepreneur disassociates his personal values from the business values, the business can only continue its existence if its values perpetuate long term sustainability.   For example, a business must maintain a positive cash flow.  A business must organize the operations, logistics, and the supply chain to ensure raw goods arrive, are transformed into finished products, and sold.  A business find customers and demonstrate the value offered by what they're selling.  A business must systematically replace employees or grow into new business areas.  The topic of business strategy attempts to answer this question of business value in terms of long term sustainability.

Is the idea of long term sustainability sufficient for business value?  Is there more or less?  Is it all about profits?  What about the community?  Without going to far down this road, I will say that it is not all about profits, but profits are a healthy indicator that things are going right (just ask the auto companies).  And the community may be considered a healthy base for trading, so helping the community can often help the business.  However, the community does not hold any rights over the business and the business does not owe the community anything other than justice when trading with individuals therein.

So where does IT fit in?  IT business value, in my conception, is information technology that enables long term sustainability by fostering value creation in business processes, resources, and relationships. This value creation can take many forms - increased efficiency, more effective processes, improved flexibility, increased communication, decreased errors, improved relationships with stakeholders, better management of assets, heightened security, etc.  Value creation such as heightened security may increase long term sustainability by preventing competitors from stealing trade secretes, it may not increase organization performance, as the authors I first cited claimed.  In fact, the impact of heightened security might slow innovation and organizational decision making, but be a necessity for competitiveness.

So this is the extent of my thinking on this concept.  I believe the real innovative piece of thinking I'll be adding is the relationship between individual values and business values.  Hopefully, I can get some input from other Objectivists on my ideas in that realm.

Home computer systems

I'm loving the new technologies available for home life.  Lately, I've been strategizing on how best to invest in computing technologies for my family.  When our budget allows, I would like to buy a new computer or two to create an awesome technology environment.  I currently see three major roles for computers in our house.  The first is the entertainment hub, for TV, movies, games, and chatting with friends.  The second role is for day-to-day living paying bills and managing finances, looking up recipes, reading the news, email, Facebook, Skype, and general Internet activities.  Lastly, I need a home office for research, writing, statistics, web development, and other business-y things.

For my entertainment hub, the Xbox 360 almost takes care of all my needs.  Now that Microsoft has purchased Skype, they need to integrate that software with the xBox so that I can use my Kinect for video chats from my living room to other Skype users.  How cool would that be?  We also subscribe to Netflix, which xBox supports the instant downloads (as does our blue-ray player, but the player can't handle games).  We may also subscribe to Hulu for more recent TV shows when we kill our cable, which is also supported by xBox.  If only the xBox had a browser, it would be the perfect entertainment system for us.  I've looked at both Apple TV and Google TV.  They both offer some nice features, such as the ability to download apps and Internet browsers and what not, but they cost just a bit more than I want to spend.   For what they cost, I could just buy a small computer and use the TV as an extra large monitor.

In the second role, we already own a laptop and a netbook, which are close, but not quite what we need.  Their tethering to power cords is a bother, especially my laptop which quite literally has about 10 minutes of battery life left.  I desperately need to buy a new battery for it... or simply get a replacement.  And the keyboards make them take more space than I would ideally like.  I've contemplated a tablet PC, either the iPad or one of the Android tablets.  They have great battery life, are smaller and more convenient than a netbook or laptop, and could handle most of our day-to-day needs.  The downside, they do not integrate well with our other computing systems.  Although we could move to cloud storage, there may not be the apps for both the tablet and Window's computers to sync everything the way I want.  I've also considered spending a bit more on a Windows All-in-one touch desktops.  Perhaps we could put this in the kitchen so my wife could look up recipes, check email, watch the news, listen to music or anything else she wants to do while prepping her awesome meals.  She could keep her netbook in the living room so we could have Internet access there.  With our Netflix and Hulu subscriptions, we could still watch many shows while the kids and I are waiting for dinner or eating breakfast.

While I am sure to have sufficient computing resources at work, I would like to create an environment at home so that I can complete all of my work as efficiently as I can at the office.  For that, I would need a desktop computer with sufficient power and a dual monitor setup for maximum productivity.  I'm also really digging video conference calls, so would have a descent web cam and headphones for making any business calls.

Now, all I need is the money.  Ideally, I would like to create a value dense selection of systems to best meet our needs at the lowest price. How are you creating your home computing environment?  I would love to hear your thoughts.

Microsoft and Skype

So the latest news is that Microsoft is buying Skype.  This is probably one of the best acquisition's Microsoft could make at this point in time, in my opinion.  From a personal stand point, I have been using Skype much more over the past year for business meetings.  If Microsoft can thoroughly integrate Skype with Office, Sharepoint, xBox, and even Windows, they'll have a killer virtual meeting application - far cheaper than Microsoft Lync and far more popular than Messenger - and infinity more convenient than some of the other virtual meeting apps out there if it is integrated with Office.  Plus, Microsoft just purchased a 170 million plus subscriber base.  Granted, most of the subscribers are free users, but Microsoft can still leverage that base with their Bing search engine and perhaps gain market share in the search arena.

But there are lingering doubts as to why Microsoft bought a platform that Microsoft's existing products could cover, namely Lync and Messenger. Why not just partner with Skype?  Plus, Skype uses peer-to-peer networking which is notoriously bandwidth expensive, rather than client-server like Lync and Messenger, which take much less bandwidth.  But with increasing usage of broadband, I doubt Skype's bandwidth issues will be much of a problem.  Also, few people know about or use Lync, and while Messenger is a bit more popular, its nowhere near as popular as Skype.  So, it comes down to buying a strong brand name, a strong user base, and descent potential for monetization.

What are you doing this summer?

Next week, final will be done and my summer vacation officially begins.  I do have one class to teach in May-June, but its one I've taught before so it will require minimal time and effort (8-10 hours per week).  Unfortunately, I'm not quite as ambitious as Phineas and Ferb, but here is what I'm going to do this summer.

My number 1 project this summer - Move to North Carolina.
That's right - for those of you who haven't heard yet, I have accepted a position at East Carolina University as an Assistant Professor of Information Systems.  This move will likely be our last for a very long time.  So my primary goal for the summer is managing our move and handling our house.  While ideally we will sell our house, the market in southeast Michigan is horrendous for sellers.  So there is a distinct possibility that our house will not sell.  In which case, option two is to rent it.  Either way, we have lots to keep us on our toes.  And then, when move time comes, we have to finish packing, drive cross country, and settle into our new home.  Lots and lots of stress, but worth it in the end.

My second most important project this summer - Improve my writing skills.
I consider myself an okay writer, but not great.  What I lack is the capability of writing fast and with high quality. Too often, I find myself writing a blog post or a research article that upon review, contains numerous mistakes and/or poorly worded sentences.  When I attempt to edit these mistakes, I rush through it, leaving additional problems.  With practice, focus, and feedback, I am confident I can improve my skills in writing.  The Art of Non-fiction by Ayn Rand, Writing in the Disciplines, and Brief Holt Handbook will guide my study.  Blog posts and research articles (I have two in mind) will provide material for practice.  And hopefully I can work with various friends to perform copy-editing on my completed materials (I will pay if you are interested).  As our budget allows, I may follow this summer project with an effective writing/communication class.  Eventually, I would like to write a book or two, so the better my skills, the greater the payoff!

My third project this summer - Improve my skills in advanced web development.
I am still debating between PHP and ASP.NET.  One the basics of each, but have not actively built websites in a number of years.  Whichever one I choose, I want to experiment and improve my ability to create new, slick, high quality websites quickly.  If I focus on PHP, I will probably combine that project with learning the content management system called Drupal. Perhaps I will even create a web site for making a little money on the side.  There is also a 9 hour video on learning Flash sitting on my desk.  Watching those videos and practicing some Flash programming might be rocking good fun too!

So those are my plans.  What are you doing this summer?

Productivity software

I've finally found something that is meeting my needs in organizing my productivity.  The program ActionComplete, designed to facilitate the Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology, syncs a web based and Android based software that allows me to work from my desktop and my phone.  The software does not fully implement GTD, but does a reasonably good job meeting my most pressing needs.

One positive practice that I've gained by using ActionComplete has been requiring myself to add at least one action item or wait time for projects on my list (currently 15 projects strong).  This practice helps me to focus on moving all of my projects forward and identifying projects that are languishing.  It also gives me the confidence to add more projects to my list without overwhelming myself.  If I keep this up, I'll meet my goal of 20% increase in productivity in a very short time.

xBox 360 Kinect for Kids

Christmas morning our family will be jumping in our family room. You see, we bought Microsoft's Kinect to go with my xBox. On Christmas morning, we will open the device and give a game to each of the kids (although I suspect that Benjamin may not be able to play much at first, being only 19 months and all).

Here's a little preview:


Microsoft achieved their success with their controller by using an infrared emitter and camera. By going infrared, the camera does not have to contend with external light sources as much, thereby increasing its accuracy.  Awesome use of physics and intense data processing (two of my favorite subjects), to make a really cool/fun/entertaining device.  I can even see some potential for training - maybe helping golfers with their swing, fitness people with correct yoga moves, or dancers with correct footing.

The three games we bought are Kinectimals, Kinect Sports, and Kinect Adventures, the last of which comes prepackaged with the device.  I'm sure all of my kids will love these games.  Thomas and Tara already love playing board games.  But especially Thomas, who is a high energy kid and likes physical action, I expect will become addicted.  A game...that is physical...that he can enjoy from the comfort of the family room...  the boy will be in heaven.

And recently, I just learned that a Stars Wars game is in the works for Christmas 2011!  I can be the Jedi I always knew was inside me.

Proactionary principles - an antidote to the precautionary principle?

As Objectivists have noted in the past, the precautionary principle is at odds with rational living.

Precautionary principle:

"If an action or policy has a suspected risk or harm, without scientific consensus that their will be no harm, then the burden of proof lies with those advocating an action or policy."

In Europe, this principle is ingrained in the law.  Many environmentalist are pushing hard to see it implemented in the United States.  As a principle, it negates technological advancement until 100% certainty is obtained.  That is simply impossible to achieve.  The entire notion of scientific consensus is an abdication of rational thought in a field where rational thought is essential.

Philosopher and futurist Max More offers an alternative, Proactionary principle:

"People’s freedom to innovate technologically is highly valuable, even critical, to humanity. This implies several imperatives when restrictive measures are proposed: Assess risks and opportunities according to available science, not popular perception. Account for both the costs of the restrictions themselves, and those of opportunities foregone. Favor measures that are proportionate to the probability and magnitude of impacts, and that have a high expectation value. Protect people’s freedom to experiment, innovate, and progress."

Although More's discussion is a bit rambling, I believe he is on to something significant.  Its a principle that accepts and combines the virtues of rationality and productivity.  It also sounds similar to an approach to the unknown that Peikoff discusses in one of his pod casts (I can't recall which one).

That being said - I am reluctant to tout the More horn.  More has shown a marked deficiency in understanding Objectivism, accepting many of the falsehoods perpetrated by the Brandens and their ilk.

Singularity

To end my class in the Intro to Information Systems, I'm exploring future predictions of technology innovation.  There are a lot of interesting predictions, but one that I find fascinating is the idea of the Singularity.

Futurist and inventor Ray Kurzweil has predicted the singularity in about 30 years.  In this Ubiquity interview with Ray, he states his premise:

I make the case that this exponential progression will lead us to an understanding of human intelligence. And by understanding I mean we will have detailed mathematical models and computer simulations of all of the regions of the brain by the mid 2020s. So by the end of the 2020s we'll be able to fully recreate human intelligence. You may wonder: "OK, what's the big deal with that? We already have human intelligence; in fact, we've got six billion human brains running around, so why do we need more?" One of the answers to that question is that it will be a very powerful combination to combine the subtle and supple powers of human pattern recognition with ways in which machines are already superior. 

While I do not doubt our ability to understand pattern recognition to a very great extent, I believe that his definition of intelligence rests primarily on pattern recognition and not concept formation.  It may be possible to simulate concept formation in computers, I'm just not convinced it will be achieved in 20 years.  Regardless of the timeline, the ultimate effect may be profound.

Ray goes on to say:

My second point is that nonbiological intelligence, once it achieves human levels, will double in power every year, whereas human intelligence—biological intelligence—is fixed. We have 10 to the 26th power calculations per second in the human species today, and that's not going to change, but ultimately the nonbiological side of our civilization's intelligence will become by the 2030s thousands of times more powerful than human intelligence and by the 2040s billions of times more powerful. And that will be a really profound transformation.

The difficulty with this statement is how can intelligence be more powerful.  Is it simply faster?  Can it remember more?  Undoubtedly true.  Can it think better?  That is a subject we cannot fathom at this point, but sound highly suspect.

My second difficulty is with the assumption that human do not enhance their own cognitive capacities through integration with computing machines.  Simple electronic interfaces already exist in Cochlear implants, prosthetics, and BrainGate.  In 20 years, we may be able to achieve fantastic integration of computers and brain functionality.  Eventually, we may be able to download our memories or learn new skills Matrix style.

There is also the difficulty of moving this intelligence into economically feasible applications.  As another futurist Max More points out:

I also see a tendency in many projections to take a purely technical approach and to ignore possible economic, political, cultural, and psychological factors that could dampen the advances and their impact.

And to that I agree.

Cool Collaboration Technologies I Don't Use

In the past year, I have tried out a lot of new, slick looking web technologies for collaboration and communication.  Mostly, I've found that they don't satisfy my needs. The biggest problem is finding a platform that everyone currently uses. 

Besides email, I still use:
Facebook - Great for staying in touch with old friends, arguing philosophy, or sharing photos.
Google Reader - Great for aggregating blog and news feeds for reading at my leisure.  Since all blogs and most news sites have RSS feeds, I rarely have any issues.
Windows Live Mesh - Great for sharing files between my computers (works as a backup system).  Although in theory I could.use this for collaboration, I do not use it for that purpose.

Technologies I have tried but no longer use:
Google Wave - Could be a great collaboration platform, but not much value to me at this point.  If I could get all of my students on it, running online classes could be interesting.
Google Buzz - Generally duplicates services from google reader and facebook, so I rarely make comments directly into buzz.
Windows Office Live Workspace - experimented uploading docs and collaborating with some faculty in Alabama.  The experiment might have went better if they were interested in pushing the collaboration online too. 
Google docs - Same as Windows Live sync experience.  I've used it for some collaboration, but not much.  The interface is okay, but doesn't get me really excited to use it.
Twitter - signed up, but found the noise from Twitter too much.  So I've stopped accessing my account.

My take - in spite of all the features, collaboration software is only as useful as the number of people who currently use it, ultimately confirming Metcalf's and Reed's law of network effects. 

My Cyborg Mother-in-Law

A new movie?  No, a fact of reality. My mother-in-law is a cyborg.  And I think it is the coolest thing in the world.

There are a variety of definitions of cyborg (cybernetic organism), but usually they refer to a human being whose body has been taken over in whole or in part by electromechanical devices (wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn).  Any type of artificial part that directly connects with our nervous system would qualify.  Several such devices are already on the market - the pace maker, the cochlear implant, BrainGate, etc.  My mother-in-law recently had surgery to enhance her deteriorating hearing with a Cochlear implant, an implanted device that amplifies sound, by passing the ear drum, and directly stimulating the auditory nerve with the appropriate electronic signals.  Her hearing has increased dramatically, to the point where she can now hear conversations on her cell phone where she never could before.

Being a cyborg is not bad.  Far from it.  It implies a recognition of the facts of reality and our own limitations there-in.  That we as humans can overcome these limitations through reason, science, technology, and engineering.  It really is a shame that the term cyborg was hijacked by sci-fi writers and given such a negative connotation.. 

Google's compromise

In 2006, Google decided to enter China in order to offer search capabilities.  The Chinese government demanded a filter on certain content items, such as key words "human rights".  Google, knowing this to be wrong, launched google.cn anyways with the filters in place.  Their reasoning at the time was in essence the greater good would be served.  Its okay to sacrifice a few people (those seeking political change in China) for the many (those in need of better search services).  They were willing to compromise their mission "to organize the world's information and make it universally useful and accessible". 

Google has belatedly decided to remove the filter in response to cyber attacks on their servers from the Chinese government.  China's actions come as no surprise to those of us who understand the nature of freedom, or the lack thereof in China. 

The basic political principle of the Objectivist ethics is: no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. No man—or group or society or government—has the right to assume the role of a criminal and initiate the use of physical compulsion against any man. Men have the right to use physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use. - Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness [bold mine]

If Google is looking for a pat on the back for their change of heart, they won't get it here.  They knowingly perpetuated violations of individual rights by allowing the Chinese government of forcibly control the information shared between individuals.  Their change in policy does not negate the great wrong they committed over the past 4 years.