vanderwal.net

Off to TR Emerging Tech Conference at MIT

Tomorrow afternoon I am off to Cambridge, MA to attend the Technology Review's Emerging Technologies Conference at MIT. I am really looking forward to this, as I will see some familiar faces and get a slightly different view to the tech world than I have had before, with nanotech and stem cell panels combined with the digital world I live in.

Web 2.0 Mash-ups and the Model of Attraction

I posted a write-up on Mash-ups and the Model of Attraction, which explains the Housing Maps through the Model of Attraction lens.

Read and comment over at Personal InfoCloud.

JetBlue Goes Meta

Last night I made a mad dash from the excellent Jaron Lanier lecture/performance at Berkeley on "Can Soulful Music Survive Digital Epistemology?" to get to the Oakland airport to catch my flight. I was in a bit of a rush and not paying any attention to anything on the radio, which may have just been KFOG.

When I got to the airport it was pretty much straight through security onto my JetBlue flight back home. As soon as we were headed down the runway many of the DirectTV screen were showing a plane landing with its front wheel on fire. As I switch my attention to my screen and switch to the news I see a JetBlue plane make an emergency landing. I looked out the window of our plane heading down the runway and thought it was not going fast enough to get airborne. Just then the wheels lifted off.

This was an odd experience for me, but not as odd as the meta experience of the JetBlue passengers on the plane with the locked front landing gear. These passengers were watching their own plane live on television, thanks to DirectTV, up until the last 10 minutes.

In all of this as I was watching and taking off, I could not help but be amazed at the quality of the pilot that landed the JetBlue plane with the locked landing gear. The skill that was needed to do a perfect landing and keep the plane from tipping over or crashing was just amazing. At that moment I felt I was on the best airline ever (I have felt this on many other occasions for other wonderful reasons, but not like last night).

I am quite thankful for the people who brought me out to the Bay Area that they could put me on JetBlue to begin with (I love their direct flights and the extra room after row 11).

Great Travel Bag

One very good thing I found out on this trip to the Bay Area. I love my new travel bag it is a Victornox carry on that is the same size as my (er my wife's) bag I had been using. This bag not only has more room in it (I fit three days of clothes (did not know what I wanted to wear), an extra pair of shoes, too damn many beauty products (but not toothpaste), and a bottle of Vitamin Water), it wheels around wonderfully (it did not tip over or tip on one wheel), and it is the first towing handle that I love. The handle curves so the bag is not only easy to pull, but it never hit my foot. This is a huge pet peeve with luggage with wheels (not that I want to go back to the days with only carrying luggage) they always clip the back of my foot when towing it behind, well until now. The wheels on this are very well placed and large, which mitigates many bag problems I have normally had.

When I get a product that is well designed, particularly one in a class of products that are abysmal or never design quite right, it is a great moment. The difference between this wonderful bag and others are rather small, but details are what separates commodities from great products (this is why I love Apple products and German cars).

Looking around the airport and plane yesterday I saw people battling their bags and I just wanted to tap them on the shoulder and say "just get one of these".

Travel Update

I am on extended stay in the Bay Area (more than the 12 hours I was here in August). Yesterday driving down 101 from San Francisco toward San Jose there was a lightening and thunder storm. So strange as they never (or rarely) happen in the Bay Area. They are common at home in the DC area. I guess it was my gift. [Yes, I discussed the weather (I loathe, utterly loathe, chatting about the weather. We have this thing called the internet and you can see instantly get weather info. Abnormal or drastic weather conversations are fine. My son seems to have picked up on this and asks every morning, "is it raining?", to which my wife smirks.]

I am still baffled by rental cars. I enjoy my beast I drive when at home, but rental cars in the U.S. only seem to serve the purpose of what poor cars the U.S. car makers produce. In the intermittent downpours yesterday the fact that not all cars (particularly the one I was driving) do not have Anti-lock Braking Systems (ABS). I have not owned a car in 10 years that has not had ABS.

Tomo and Ivan on Ebay to raise funds for the Red Cross

Our friends, Kevin and Tom, have put up an OK/Cancel pencil sketch on Ebay to raise money for the Red Cross Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund. It is Ebay and Tomo & Ivan for good a good cause, you know what to do.

No More Waiting...

I suppose I should note here that the last day at my current job will be October 6, 2005. I am not sure what the next full step will be, but I will be focussing my full attention what I have been passionate about for the past few years. Rather than spending a few hours every evening and weekends on my passions, it will become my full-time job. The details will show themself in the next few weeks and months. I need the time to persue some options and have time to think about and consider others.

For the last couple years I have joked I commute to my day job, but telecommute to my private life. Well, my private life is where most of the Model of Attraction, Personal InfoCloud, Local InfoCloud, and folksonomy work takes place. Pieces of this work make it into the day job, but not enough to keep me excited or engaged. I am really wanting to see more great work and products that easily functions for people across devices, across platforms, and is easy for real people to use and reuse.

The world has been shifting to a "come to me web". We are seeing the easiest way to make this easier for people attract what they want this is to learn what each person has an interest in, as well as what their friends and peers have interests in. This will help the findability of information and media for people, but the real problem is in the re-findability of that same information and media for people so they can have what the want and desire at their finger tips when they want it and need it. We have all of the technology needed to make this happen, but it needs research, quick iterative development, and removing the walls around the resources (information/media, unwarranted device restrictions (American cell companies have created the failure of the missing robust mobile market), and unwarranted software restrictions). Paying attention to people and people's interactions is the real key to getting things right, not trying to beat your competitor (focussing on the wrong goal gets the poor results). Make the products people need that solve problems people have (with out introducing problems) and you will have a winner. People have so many needs and desires and every person is different so one solution will not fit all and we should never make things just one way.

These will be a long few weeks with more small steps for me. There is a lot to get done and to consider in the next few weeks. In this is preparing for speaking and traveling on top of the other needed work to be done to prep for this next step. I will pop back up and fill you in when I know more. but, the count down has begun.

If I Gave Awards...

I have been a big fan of Mac OSX Hints for quite some time. After this past week and some oddities with a couple of things, Mac OSX Hints is my first stop in solving or taking proactive steps. Not only does the site provide solutions to nearly everything I have ever run across, but it also explains the issues at hand so I have an even better understanding of the system. Awesome.

Old Dog New Blog Posts

So you are having problems figuring out what is posted here and what is posted at Personal InfoCloud? I am too, well I have habits that seem to be harder to break that I thought. I am going to be moving some content over to Personal InfoCloud (copying is more like it, as it will still reside here). I have a thing for my vanderwal.net posting interface (not pretty, but the text box is large enough for me to think) and I post with markup included, so I know exactly what the result will be.

I am going to make a concerted effort to post social networking, folksonomy, InfoCloud, mobile, personal information management, and other things along those lines over at Personal InfoCloud. What does that heave for vanderwal.net Off the Top? Everything else, I know that does not leave much, but I may include short versions of that is posted at the Personal InfoCloud, particularly since the folksonomy category gets a good chunk of traffic on its own. I am also thinking strongly about putting the last three posts headings over in the side column.

The other confounding issue is the Quick Links (my del.icio.us bookmarks are displayed here and not on the Personal InfoCloud (some relate to the topics there, but not all of them and the personal ones that do not are really not appropriate there). I am not going to start another feed (although a subfeed could be somewhat appropriate) for there.

I am also working on feeds for each of the categories here, which would confound the bifurcating process I am discussing. This is down the to do list a short way, following turning comments here once again (time limitations are a problem at the moment). There are not only speaking preparation and travel arrangements, but some life subplots (some are divergent, which I really don't like thinking about work being for naught but that is what alternate plans are at times) in the works that are taking time.

So there we are. If you have responses that you think could help, please send them.

Top Gear is Aces

I have spent this evening in utter joy. I finally got my hands on some Top Gear episodes. This is a car show from the Beeb. It is bright, entertaining, funny, and informative and may be the best hour I have spent watching television (er, on my computer) in the longest time.

While watching it I kept thinking two things, a how wonderful this show is on a humor and well crafted video car reviews that are extremely entertaining. The other thing I kept thinking was, there is no way that American television could reproduce this.

My normal fodder, should I be let alone with the remote and 200 or so satellite stations, is Fine Living, some BBC America, and some sports (American Football, baseball, and International Football, basketball, and rugby (when the international sporting gods shine their light down upon me)). I have found the I am quite a fan of the Daily Show, but I do not have access to the remote when it is on, so I have to use other means (um, we do have more than one television, but the second one is in a room where it can not be watched and we have not caught up with 4 years ago and picked up a Tivo because, well "because" is the reason).

Needless to say, I am now a huge fan of Top Gear and can not understand why it is not on BBC America. Get your hands on it if you get a chance.