Given any number of circumstances, this blog entry has no physical substance. Anything more for less esoteric would be inconsistent with the subject and the inspirations.

So, what does it mean to be the “last” ? If you take things literally – and by that, I mean all that we have been told of ourselves – each one of us is unique. Then, when we finally pass, we are “the last of our kind”.

While the “Last of the Time Lords” is the title for an episode of the current Doctor Who series, it is also an opportunity to stop and reflect. “What will the world be when you or I are gone?” Will we have made a difference? When 10 years or 100 years have past, will there be a record of our existence; or our accomplishments ; or will we be just a record in a database somewhere, recorded in a format long since obsolete?

Too much reflection for you – yeh ? Not a problem. Let’s turn the deck up-side-right and look at all of the card on the table. Imagine for a moment that it is 10 years after either of us has passed. How is the world different ? How is the world the same ? And here is the kicker – How would you like the world to be ?

Take that last bit and now ask yourself – what have I done to insure the world is as I imagine ? Have I done anything to insure (or at the very least nudge) the world has moved toward how I dream it to be ? If not, then how can we expect that image to become a reality ?

Perhaps it is G&T + Doctor. Perhaps it is the transition of chapters in our lives. Perhaps it is the result of recent readings of RTTC. Perhaps it is a few well rehearsed words from our parents. What ever the reason, the source matters little. The action matters most. “Deeds not words.” Decide how you want to change the world. Take action. Our days are numbered. Leave a legacy. Each day is an opportunity. Each night signals a day gone. There are only so many days – how many we are not told. Act everyday to move a little closer to the “tomorrow you envision”.

PEOPLE = CHANGE

In Stephen O’Grady’s post titled “It?s the Network, Not the Application: Online Desktops” he describes an environment where the computer is always connected to internet.

Some day this may be true but it’s not true today – unless you use the internet in a sufficiently limited way that satellite connectivity is productive. For many in the world – and it’s still very true here in the United States – internet connectivity is only achieved over dial-up. This is neither fast enough of cost effective enough to be “always on”. I know many people who are less than 5 miles from high speed internet connectivity but because there is no economy of scale, are not served – some are less than 1 mile away. For them, it is frustrating knowing it is so close and yet it would be literally thousands of dollars to “get connected”.

Obviously, this will change over the next several years but it is slow to change because the internet service provider is a capitalist. I’m not implying this is a bad thing. Rather, I am making a point that “those who have” seem to forget about “those who have not” – even when the members of the first group were very recently members of the second group. … how quickly we forget … <sigh>

The US government has had an initiative to promote rural development by funding development and deployment of high speed internet to the unserved and under served sections of the country. One of the driving goals is to provide the “global economy” to rural families and thereby allowing them to extend their economic opportunities. A large number of rural Americans either live near or below the poverty line. They would rather not give up on their way of life. They have creativity, business sense, time and labor on there side. The rural internet initiative would allow them to supplement the family income or even create whole new incomes if they had a market for their products and skills – the local community and county fairs do not provide enough customers but the internet does.

Unfortunately, the rural internet initiative has been given a failing grade for many years. I don’t have access to the government records but I would guess the failing grades go back beyond the current administration so I would not characterize it as a republican or democrat failure – it’s an American failure.

This is one of those cases where the private sector won’t solve the problem. It’s not in their short term economic interest. It has no pay off within a few fiscal quarters <rassa fraggin’ short sighted fiscal bean counters>. I liken it to the US Highway system. Today it is a great asset to American business but when it was first built, it had to be a government project because it did not have short term economic incentive.

I hope this will change at some point but I am not holding my breath. In the mean time I support our legislators and senators who see the value in getting the internet more distributed. Where possible, I provide my time and knowledge to the efforts. I have no grand illusions. I don’t expect we will have a truly “world wide web” anytime soon. I don’t even expect we will cover major countries anytime soon.

What I believe is there is more to a capitalist society that quarterly earnings reports. There is value in a long term view. There is a balance between profits and profitability. There is creativity, chupzta, knowledge, and sweat equity in a scale most companies only dream of … and it’s out there, just waiting!

This video was referenced over on Vowe dot net. I agree with most when I saw “I WANT ONE” !

Two things came to mind when I saw the video – the concept definitely has applications (and one would be as a rich interface to PersonalBrain) and the second thing is it reminded me of my IBM Touch Screen I had on my P70 back in 1992. (I have no idea what model # that monitor was.) Continue reading ‘Time Index 00:00:51’ »

I was watching this week’s episode of FutureCar on the Discovery Channel. The entire show was nothing extraordinary until the very last 30 seconds. Throughout the program, they kept returning to this group of young designers, each with their idea of what the future car would be. For me, every design they showed, looked futuristic but was predictable – techie, or macho, or what-have-you. In none of them did the characteristic I have grown to associate with true creativity …

…the ability to look at a situation in a way that is not expected and yields a totally new insight and direction of thought …

Continue reading ‘FutureCar – what does it mean to be creative ?’ »

I envision a conferencing service that is as easy as a cellphone. Imagine a service with the equivalent of voice dialing …

“Get Rocky, Carl, and Libby”

The service locates the participants, but discovers Libby is busy. It scans forward and backward in time to find Libby is available 30 minutes ago, but only for a few minutes, and is also available an hour from now. It chooses a hour from now and contacts her then.

A hologram of each participant is brought together simultaneously (much like looking at a miniature model of a room projected on the desk or table in front of you).

The group conference takes place with all of the resources of the mini holographic conference room – whiteboard, writing paper, interactive video displays, etc.

The projection is automatically recorded and all of the holographic materials are optionally transferred to real objects at the end of the meeting.

With this system, there is no more hunting for a convenient time to meet and is much more productive since everyone is “in the same place”.