Learning from the past or leaving it behind?

Why is it so difficult not to look at the past? And is it necessary to look at the past to understand and prepare for the future? Good medicine has always been to be positive and look ahead - not backwards, but how do we do that? When we look back, we do it either to blame ourselves or someone else because it is easier. It is easier because then we don't have to take responsibility either for our actions or for what is going to happen in the future. Problem is, it obviously doesn't work. In the end of the day only WE can take responsibility for our lives and indeed be responsible for our actions. But it is hard! It is hard to find the border between leaning from the past and blaming the past. When is it a lesson we must carry with us to the future and when is it a mistake we must leave behind? Having said that, are there such a thing as a mistake or is it all lessons that are opportunities to learn from?

Who decides?

Reading Ballmer's brave "New World of Work" made me think about who it is that decides what software is going to be like in the future? What is the process, both the implicit and the explicit one? Because software is a business and companies produce software products, one would think it should be the market forces that decides. However market forces deals with supply and demand, and I am not so sure that works the same way for software as it does for other product types. First, the production cost for software lies almost completely in the development of the software, as the production and disstribution costs are virtually nil. Second, the demand side is hard to define. For software the demand should be users telling the software industry what they want and then the industry develops it (if there is a business case), but most of the time the users don't know what they want! So what happens? Well, as we can read from Mr. Ballmer's opinion specifically and Microsoft in general is, that we decide what the furture is and what products we are going to develop and sell to you. And if you don't like it go somewhere else...WHAT there is nowhere else to go...though!!

Whats next?

Having worked with computers and developed software in various capacities, I have found lots of fascinating things and lots of frustrations. I am sure others in a similar position have done the same. Over time, I have spend a lot of time thinking about what can be done to make it better - again, I am sure I am not the only one. I have found that one thing is thinking about it and another completely different thing is actually doing something. I guess the doing part has two components to it: what to do and having the time to do it in. This blog is meant to be a way for me to deal with the first part - what to do. All the things and ideas that I have in my head are all very well, but completely pointless if they don't get put to any use. I have found that when I get an idea to solve something, I eventually get stuck and start thinking in circles - does anyone else experience this? I hope that this blog can help with this, by freeing up some space in my brain, so I can think further than what I normally could.

Are we now God?

Was reading a SF novel (Sister Alice, by Robert Reed) that was taking place millions of years from now, where humans have complete control over their genetic makeup and the more advanced ones can change at will. These very powerful people are revered as gods by their fellow human beings. This made me think about how we "define" a god or at least an omnipotent god. I suppose that an omnipotent god or being is someone who has the power of creating and destroying life (and in general anything that we can sense) at will, and to change and affect existing life in any way he or she sees fit. Humans has always looked to these gods to explain things they did not understand or whenever they wanted to influence other people(notably priests), saying it is the will of God that you must do so and so. In previous times people accepted this and acknowledged the priests making these claims, I suppose mainly out of fear or lack of knowledge to contradict the priests. In more recent times we see people rejecting the priests because they have the knowledge (and confidence) to contradict them. Now back to my main point. If gods are the ultimate creator and destructor of life will any human that achieves these powers then automatically become a God? All through time, humans have seeked technology aimed at destroying their enemies (whoever they might be) and we have become pretty good at it! With the invention of nuclear weapons, we have almost achieved the ultimate power of destruction of life. Granted, the technology is now available to everyone, but it becomes easier and easier as this knowledge becomes more readily available. Also within the last 10-20 years, genetic technology has taken quantum leaps in understanding the building blocks of life and it is quite obvious, that it is just a matter of time before we can manipulate life at a genetic level. So when do we all become gods? Humans has technology now, that can destroy life and create life. Maybe the technology is still a bit crude, but I have no doubt that it will be further developed and refined, even though there are political and religious objections. And when that happens and this technology becomes readily available are we then all gods? In the book I mentioned, humans are virtually immortal and their bodies can repair any physical harm they might find, and I guess that with advances in genetics that is definitely achievable. When we all become immortal will that then spin off a race to find ever more powerful weapons to fuel the desire (or need) to kill each other or will we finally realise that it is a futile effort to keep on killing each other? In the end of the day, nature will always win! And to the people that believe that genetic manipulation is unnatural, I must say that they are contradicting themselves...If humans are part of nature, then it must follow that all we do is also natural and part of a natural evolution...

More offices?

I heard on the radio, that they think that we will need 50% more office space by 2015. Personally I don't think so. I mean, more and more people are spending their day in front of a PC so going into an office to do that are becoming more and more pointless as technology is enabling us to connect and communicate remotely from our own bedroom! Why would we want to waste even more time in trafic/trains/etc when we can do our job perfectly from our own home?

Moving out...stuff

It has been a fact for a long time now, that the flat in Denmark Hill is too small. I know that a two bed room flat for two people seems fair enough, but it you don't want to be cluttering all your walls/floor with stuff then at some point things become too small. We have been discussing moving somewhere else for a while now, but that has its own issues:

• We don't know where we want to live
• 'A' must be able to travel to cental London (Liverpool Street specifically)
• As long as 'A' is studying, it would be risky to move
• We probably can't really afford what we want

So what do you do, when you don't want piles everywhere? You goto self-storage! When I first thought of the idea and checked out some prices, it seemed rediculous to pay 50 quid per month (!) for 15 sq.feet. I mean 15 sq.feet how small is that! But then if you thing about it, it an store about 25 moving boxes, which is as much as all my stuff when I moved from Copenhagen, albeit that was a long time ago... Anyway I presented the idea to 'A' and her initial comment was something along the lines of you must be nuts..., and that when other people run out of space they find a bigger place whereas I just ant to 'hide' it... I tried to explain that we had already thrown out as much as possible and that we really couldn't move right now (see above), but still she resisted... In the end I went ahead and made my way down to the Big Yellow round the corner and booked my 15 sq.feet... I must say that it does make sense. Yes, 50 quid is a lot, but then rent in London is just stupid! And if you need more space, it is a good option. Now I just need to find out what to put there...

The blind spot

Just went to the local pub for a spot of lunch. I noticed they had a sign on the door saying that the menu was available in Braille! Is it just me or am I missing something here...

When is it enough?

Where is the limit of interference of the politicians into peoples lives? Now in the US the lawmakers will prohibit fast-forwarding on DVD's and you have got to ask yourself the question: Who are the politicians working for? I suppose it is a question asked many times before, but fundamentally I would guess that they work for the ones that put them in office, i.e. the public. If that is the case, how on Earth can they think of putting something like this into law? I mean, it is blatantly obvious that they are just supporting an industry that is supporting their campaign to keep a warm and comfortable seat in an office where they can, apparently, act as small Gods!! If this is the case, haven't the public then lost their right to actually wield power through exercising their democratic rights? Aren't the politicians just serving the few instead of the many? I know, I know there is nothing new in this, but still...

Flatline...

Still no downloads on my open-source project...

Fruit cult

That Apples users are passionate about their Macs are nothing new. But does this help Apple? I am sure that a great part of the cult status of the Mac has to do with Steve Jobs and normally cults are also associated with individual persons, who then gets elevated to demi-god status with whatever benefits that may give them. But Apple is a business. Will a business benefit from a cult status in a similar way as a person will? The main purpose of a business is to make money. Everything it does should in the long run result in something black on the bottom line. Apple buts a lot of efford into creating a cult about their products, but it doesn't seem like they have a lot gain on the bottom line from this. Granted the share price is the highest it have been for a long time, but their market share is still nothing to write home about. Is Microsofts FUD the only way to penetrate the market? Does Apples cult really work in the long term? Will Linux show us how it should be done? Or is their a third way...?

Activism by party

After the launch of Firefox and the parties organised by users (more than 400 last I checked), is this a new form of activism? I mean, everyone wants to party and using the internet, it will be pretty easy to organise people into meeting in a pub for a specific cause. I am sure the model, where individuals are organising their own local party will work just fine. In todays world of general apathy, we need some form of motivation that can get people out on the steets...

MS is FUD'ed

Seems like Microsoft is at it again spreading more FUD without be specific about what they want to do about it. Obviously threads like this will only work where software patents can be enforced, which (still) does not count Europe. Problem for Microsoft is that laws like this is more or less set by industry trends. If the industry is taking a monopolistic turn, such as with Microsoft, then it will result in patent laws as we see them to enable the politicians to get continued support from the industry big boys (read: bid money). If industry opinion changes, and software patents in general and Microsoft in specific gets out of favour, then the politicians will change their opinion and they will adjust to industry trends. Now that puts Microsoft in a catch-22. If they do nothing and loose market share to open-source, then we will see and industry trend change and a shift in policy, which will threaden to remove the very foundation of Microsoft. If they try and spread FUD and it backfires, i.e. companies/governments ignore it, then we will have the same situation. If they start draging companied to court, then the chance is they will have another SCO on their hands, which will just be a slow painful death! Policy can only be controlled if you are a monopoly, and Microsoft has successfully done this through FUD, but now they seem to be confused about which way to go. Will be interesting to see their next move...

Too many things to do

I always find it amazing that the more we need to do, the less we actually get done! I am sure that numerous books has been written about how to organise your tasks (as it is genericly called in this day of age) to that you make sure you get the most important ones done first and eventually all of them. But I don't find these tools work - and I am wondering if there isn't something fundamentally wrong in the way we decide our tasks. It seems like the more sparetime we have on our hands the more tasks we take on, but the less we get done. And I beleive it is this compulsion to fill all our time with doing stuff that is the problem; for some reason we can not accept idle time, so we fill it up. Problems then come when our non-spare time has become so stressed that we need the idle time to clear our heads. If we don't let the brain run idle once in a while, we just end up in the situation, where we get nothing planned or done and then we have the bad spiral where the tasks (some of them important!) just piles up and we are looking at the piles unable to react.