phyllostachys 47: Minute Tech 32 show notes

32 - What is In Flanders Fields?


Good morning, this is the Minute Tech podcast -

coming to you for Friday, November 16th, 2007

We take a few minutes to talk about technology
----
This is Alex Landefeld with minute tech 32 - What is In Flanders Fields?

Minute Tech podcast is brought to you in part by:

Larry Tolbert's Sunday Morning Wu Style Taiji - 9:30 every Sunday morning at the Dunamis Baptist Church, in Wilkinsburg, PA.
"Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji" - e-mail leonardtolbert-[at]-hotmail-[dot]-com for more info.

Tech items:

Somehow I inadvertently happened upon an abbreviated version of Gmail last night. If you type for your gmail login "mail.google.com / mail / x" - you get a text only version of gmail. I mean...I thought gmail was already quite svelte in layout...but this is nearly as devoid of color as that entry-level Linux favorite Pine.

I currently work as an "applications support specialist" for an onshore outsourced word processing (which we call "document services") department for a global law firm....in Wheeling, WV. The outsource firm is Williams Lea, inc. Williams Lea is a British company specializing in uber-cost cutting for companies who want to save 30% on their internal services, by outsourcing mailroom, print/copy, document processing and even IT. Note that outsourcing primarily saves by cutting salaries and healthcare expenditures for that group of outsourced positions...the outsourcing company must figure out how to (1) maintain the same level of service, but with (2) tighter fiscal outlay. That means tighter wage policies, less year-end-bonus, and potentially tighter healthcare outlay.

In my mind, these items are the reality of business - outsourcers are just showing more profitable companies how to provide services for less cost. As in any other industry, a profitable company wants it's profits kept, although paying employees is a necessary....uh...thing to do.

Foreign companies, like Williams Lea, Tiger Direct, Tata Consultancy and Infosys are not the only companies doing this thing called BPO, or business process outsourcing - Northrop Grumman, of aerospace fame, has successfully contracted with the State of Virginia to take on the state's IT services. This may be small in scope compared to a multi-national corporation...but it's a start.

Go to www.offshoringtimes.com and click on their "What is BPO" link for more information.
http://www.offshoringtimes.com/WhatIsBPO.html



Tech Question:

What is in Flanders Fields?

In Flanders fields is a poem written by poet John McCrae, in the trenches of World War 1, on May 3rd, 1915. Flanders, in Belgium, has a wealth of poppies growing its fields...and this beautiful red flower is a symbol of remembrance for the fallen in World War 1.

One year ago I was in the "record neat things in GarageBand" kick, and recorded the following when my family e-mailed around about the remembrances of Veterans Day. This recording is about 1.5 minutes, after which I'll jump into the podcasting/blogging section.



podcasting/blogging tidbit:

I recently stumbled back upon the online writings of a serial entrepreneur and author, Paul Graham. If you go to Paul Graham dot com, you'll see that he has many interesting essays on many interesting topics. The most interesting to me are the writings on doing a startup. Am I thinking down this road? It'd be interesting...but lets write about it for now.

As Paul writes, it's not the idea that is important, but the group of people. If you have the right mix of people, who think unanimously toward goals and actions, then the ideas can flow from one thing to another.

One interesting example of this was a company originally called CacheFlow, which mid-stream, during the tech crash at the beginning of this decade, changed direction from selling very popular web caching appliances to developing a business in a slightly more arcane arena, Proxy management. This company is now call Blue Coat Systems Inc (BCSI), and they're doing an awesome global business.


Thats all for today on Minute Tech podcast.
you can reach me at minutetech@gmail.com -
and my blog is at minutetech.blogspot.com

"Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji"

- Text Gmail and BPO
- What is In Flanders Fields?
- Paul Grahams essays and CacheFlow.

Go to the Minute Tech iWeb page to subscribe or listen to this podcast: Minute Tech.

phyllostachys 46: Minute Tech 31 show notes

31 - Veterans Day Revealed.


Good morning, this is the Minute Tech podcast -

coming to you for Thursday, November 15th, 2007

We take a few minutes to talk about technology
----
This is Alex Landefeld with minute tech 31 - Veterans Day Revealed

Minute Tech podcast is brought to you in part by:

Larry Tolbert's Sunday Morning Wu Style Taiji - 9:30 every Sunday morning at the Dunamis Baptist Church, in Wilkinsburg, PA.
"Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji" - e-mail leonardtolbert-[at]-hotmail-[dot]-com for more info.

Tech items:

What do Gandalf, Harry Potter and Libsyn all have in common? Why, they're wizzards, of course!

Libsyn, the podcast hosting website, is now a subsidiary of Wizzard Software of Pittsburgh. Wizzard Software, which has been around in various small company formulations since 1998, yesterday announced stellar revenue increases...though as a truly growing company, their net income, and the hence earnings per share, were in decidedly negative territory.

Go to the SEC's website and search on W-I-Z-D and you'll find Wizzards 10q report. I'll link to it here in the show notes.

Let me read to you a brief blurb about the company from a recent SEC filing - yes, I read those things and love 'em!

"Organization - Wizzard Software Corporation ["Parent"], a Colorado corporation, was organized on July 1, 1998. The Company operates in two industry segments, Software and Healthcare. The Software segment engages primarily in the development, sale, and service of custom and packaged computer software products, and podcast hosting services. The Healthcare segment operates primarily in the home healthcare and healthcare staffing services in Wyoming and Montana. On April 9, 2004, Parent organized Wizzard Merger Corp., a New York corporation, to acquire and dissolve into the operations of MedivoxRx Technologies, Inc., a New York corporation, in a transaction accounted for as a purchase. On September 8, 2005, Parent purchased all of the issued and outstanding shares of Interim Healthcare of Wyoming, Inc. ["Interim"], a Wyoming corporation, in a transaction accounted for as a purchase. On February 27, 2007, Parent organized Wizzard Acquisition Corp., a Pennsylvania corporation, to acquire and dissolve into the operations of Webmayhem, Inc. [Libsyn], a Pennsylvania corporation, in a transaction accounted for as a purchase. Libsyn engages primarily in providing podcast hosting services. On April 3, 2007, Interim purchased certain assets of Professional Personnel, Inc., dba, Professional Nursing Personnel Pool ["PNPP"]."



Tech Question:

Veterans Day Revealed....or what truly is Veterans day?

Did you know that Veterans Day is the same as Armistice Day as it's celebrated in Europe? World War I ended on the "the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 with the German signing of the Armistice". As of 1926, the US government made November 11th to be celebrated in the US as Armistice Day. In 1968 the US government changed the observed holiday to be called "Veterans Day" and to always fall on a Monday - Veterans groups rightly protested...so the official day is on November 11th, with the government and banking holiday (though not the stock market, etc.) falling on the Monday holiday.

Wikipedia tells us that

"Remembrance Day (Australia, Canada, United Kingdom), also known as Poppy Day (Malta, South Africa) or Armistice Day (France, New Zealand, and a number of other Commonwealth countries; and the original name of the day internationally) is a day to commemorate the sacrifices of members of the armed forces and of civilians in times of war, specifically since the First World War. It is observed on 11 November to recall the end of World War I on that date in 1918. The day was specifically dedicated by King George V, on 7 November 1919, to the observance of members of the armed forces who were killed during war; this was possibly done upon the suggestion of Edward George Honey to Wellesley Tudor Pole, who established two ceremonial periods of remembrance based on events in 1917.[1][2]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembrance_Day


podcasting/blogging tidbit:

The cool thing about setting a topical theme for the week on this podcast is that little by little I learn more about the subject...and different ways in which to present it. How do you present things?

Also, how do you present advertisements? I've designed the brief advertisement for my teacher's tai class at the beginning of this 'cast. A valued listener suggested putting a related trailer at the end. How do these work for you?

I mentioned using twitter recently...but didn't mention an alteration to my twitter habit, involving the ubiquitous twitter feature, the "tiny URL" www.tinyurl.com is the home of a service that twitter uses to short URL's, the links to everywhere on the internet. This is so that messages stay short, no matter how long an internet is...and some can be 10's or 100s of characters long.

But....if you paste in your long URL after a lengthy message in Twitter...you get told that the message is too long...even if the eventual tinyURL converted link will be short. So, a resolution.

If you go to www.tinyURL.com, you can paste your URL into their web page...and have it converted for you before you compose your Twitter message! Go try it out...that's how I'm making my twitter posts just as windy as usual! :-)


Thats all for today on Minute Tech podcast.
you can reach me at minutetech@gmail.com -
and my blog is at minutetech.blogspot.com

- Wizzards, one and all;
- Veterans Day Revealed.
- Use tinyURL to enhance your twittering.

Go to the Minute Tech iWeb page to subscribe or listen to this podcast: Minute Tech.

phyllostachy 45: Minute Tech 30 - Empathize

30 - Empathize your Hero's


Good morning, this is the Minute Tech podcast -

coming to you for Wednesday, November 14th, 2007

We take a few minutes to talk about technology
----
This is Alex Landefeld with minute tech 30 - Empathize your Hero's

Minute Tech podcast is brought to you in part by:

Larry Tolbert's Sunday Morning Wu Style Taiji - 9:30 every Sunday morning at the Dunamis Baptist Church, in Wilkinsburg, PA.
"Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji" - email leonardtolbert@hotmail.com for more info.

Tech items:

I've spent so much time this morning researching the latter parts of this show, that the news items will suffer. Suffice it to say that Data, Lore and Nunian Sung are not alone:

Google has released it's own Android - an architecture for creating mobile wireless software programs - think e-mail, facebook, etc.

Apple and it's tech co-horts have bounced back from a 20% decline - yesterday rising on the NASDAQ to the tune of some 10%. Talk about volatility - this type of market is why some go screaming from Tech companies, while others revel in the uncertainty.

Tech Question:

Empathize your Hero.

How can you emulate your hero without truly empathizing with the feelings and experiences of your hero?

Sure, you can put yourself into just the glory moments of your hero: the steps up to the private jet, the end of the mililtary campaign with victoriously bloody sword held high, viewing the sunset from the water-side villa in Thailand, putting the pen down at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, or sinking that victorious putt on the 18th green.

But remember that your hero is human, too: they must deal with the fear of their King's rejection, they must plan to mobilize the troops, he or she who's smile has launched a thousand emulators must deal with loosing teeth, and he or she who has amazed the masses with decades of virtuousic music must deal with the uncertainties of sudden illness.

Monday's Wall Street Journal has a story about Japanese Pianist Izumi Tateno - who has reformed his music abilities after suffering an age-related debilitating stroke. What a story to empathize with - what a hero to emulate.


podcasting/blogging tidbit:

After 30 episodes of the Minute Tech podcast, I'm considering both ways to improve the current workflow, which I've detailed in an early blog post on the Minute Tech blog, as well as ways to augment content.

One of the important things to consider in message is simplicity. Simple messages stick with your audience more easily than complex messages. Also, the ideal in presenting messages is to chunk you message into sets of three: three main subjects, three ideas that the audience can grasp without loosing sight or concentration, three concepts.

Currently, I have three segments:

Tech Items - which can be comprised of tech ideas, concepts or news items;
The Tech Question - the main focus of the episode, focusing on one main idea;
The podcasting/blogging tidbit - providing news or information about the medium in which I'm working.

So, I don't necessarily want to dilute this framework...but I want to insert other items, such as a periodic biographical reference to a famous person who people can emulate. Perhaps, thinking about it, I could insert this as a weekly special segment. Hmmmm. I think its really important to provide people with the hope that their situation has been met and overcome by others before....just how to embed this "meme" within the current framework is the question to be resolved.

I recently came across information about a local Pittsburgh company called Elliance, Inc., formerly known as Research Access, Inc.. Elliance provides web services in the areas of marketing, e-commerce website design and a new field called Search Engine Optimization - depending on your perspective, the three service areas can be considered facets of one - your overall brand. On their SEO website, they have a graphic pertaining to optimizing podcasts - check it out via the link in the show notes, or Google the words "elliance podcast optimization" (don't quote them in the google search) and click the first link.

http://searchengineoptimization.elliance.com/search-marketing-resources/seo-infographics.aspx?title=Podcast-Optimization
http://searchengineland.com/071113-125726.php

http://www.nfib.com/object/IO_23935.html

http://www.elliance.com/About/speakersBios.asp

Thats all for today on Minute Tech podcast.
you can reach me at minutetech@gmail.com -
and my blog is at minutetech.blogspot.com

- Android in the making, and Apple stages a comeback;
- Empathize your Heros.
- Focus on three ideas; elliance.com.

Go to the Minute Tech iWeb page to subscribe or listen to this podcast: Minute Tech.

phyllostachys 44: Minute Tech 29 - Emulate

29 - Emulate your Hero's


Good morning, this is the Minute Tech podcast -

coming to you for Tuesday, November 13th, 2007

We take a few minutes to talk about technology
----
This is Alex Landefeld with minute tech 29 - Emulate your Hero's

Minute Tech podcast is brought to you in part by:

Larry Tolbert's Sunday Morning Wu Style Taiji - 9:30 every Sunday morning at the Dunamis Baptist Church, in Wilkinsburg, PA.
"Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji" - email leonardtolbert@hotmail.com for more info.

Tech items:

Apple is apparently in talks with China Mobile to distribute the Apple iPhone in China. This means three things:

China Mobile may be preparing to offer a hugely useful cellular/entertainment device to its customers;
Apple may be about to enter a market where it's iPhone sales could triple overnight;
China Mobile could see it's Market capitalization eclipsed by that crazy computer designer, Apple Inc.

The New York Times mentioned this morning that our love of chocolate may go back to as old as 1100 BC, when Central Americans in Honduras and other regions may have used the Cacao bean to brew a fermented beer-like beverage. So that's what a nice glass of Stout means by chocolatey taste! :-)

Tech Question:

Emulate your Hero.

Who is your hero? One of the greatest and longest lasting forms of technology has been the idea of hero worship and emulation.

Ever since Ugg heroically threw a sharpened stick down from the tree to skewer the saber-tooth cat, providing Ooogee and Aaaggee a point for emulation in their own fight-off-the-australopithecus-eating-monster role-play, up through Helen launching the thousand ships and Abraham Lincoln fighting to end human slavery in North America, Heros have been an extremely important part of the human psyche.

What can be more important than creating a mental focus for all of your energy? Humans long ago realized that life is far more productive if the mind can be focused away from only procreation and eating, to other areas such as protection of the community, building of shelters, braving the deep lakes and oceans, and developing systems for mapping time and nature.

Veterans Day gives us the opportunity to open our hearts and minds to those great men and women who have literally fought to maintain our present way of life, so that we collectively and individually can move beyond border disputes to the task of maintaining a growing civilization through the next century. When we see what those men and women have done, let us look into their lives - seek the positive - we all have negative aspects - we can learn to emulate the positive and learn from the reality of the negative.

In the show notes, I'll provide links to wikipedia for the following people: Lucy, Helen of Troy, Molly Pitcher and Abraham Lincoln.

Lucy
Helen of Troy
Molly Pitcher
Abraham Lincoln

As a side note, one of the most interesting business newspapers in the US is Investors Business Daily, or IBD. This paper is important to experienced investors, as it provides a well thought-out and orchestrated system for investing in the stock market. But perhaps more importantly, IBD gives us biographies of hero's to emulate. Buy a copy of IBD today.


podcasting/blogging tidbit:

I've mentioned this before, but the Quirks and Quarks science radio show from Canadian Broadcasting Corp is a hugely amazing set of weekly stories about humans, the world they live on and the universe in which they live.

Two recent episodes, which you can subscribe to for your mp3 player:

November 10, 2007 Story summaries, links and sound files. Before the Big Bang, Messing up Migration, Soft Body Fossils, Chemical Class for Fish Schools
November 3, 2007 Story summaries, links and sound files. Nervous Arm, Vibrating Mice, Ventriloquism and the Brain, Fossil body prints, The Primate's Closest Cousin, Auklets and Aphrodisiacs
Go to www.cbc.ca forward slash quirks.

Thats all for today on Minute Tech podcast.
you can reach me at minutetech@gmail.com -
and my blog is at minutetech.blogspot.com

- Apple and China Mobile?
- Emulate your Heros.
- Quirks and Quarks - from the Macro to the Micro.

Go to the Minute Tech iWeb page to subscribe or listen to this podcast: Minute Tech.

phyllostachys 43: Minute Tech 28 show notes

28 - What is Veterans Day?

Good morning, this is the Minute Tech podcast -

coming to you for Monday, November 12th, 2007

We take a few minutes to talk about technology
----
This is Alex Landefeld with minute tech 28 - What is Veterans Day?

Tech items:

One of the greatest technological inventions of the modern era is the calendar.

Calendars gave all organized cultures the ability to measure time year in and year out, or month by month, week by week so that harvests could be scheduled, floods could be scheduled, religious festivals could by planned, logistical needs could be planned for...and birthdays could be celebrated.

Types of calendars:
- the Lunar calendar, based on the movements of the moon,
- the solar calendar, based on the movements of the sun,
- day-based calendar
- Multi-cycle calendar (day, week, month, year)
- a Fiscal calendar, which fixes months with a specific number of weeks, to enable month to month and year to year fiscal comparisons;
- an arithmetic calendar which uses calculation rules to determine the structure of the calendar.

Tech Question:

the answer to the question "what is Veterans Day" is enormously simple: A day on which we can honor those who've served in our military services, both in times of peace and war.

The answer to what comes after Veterans day is enormously complex.

The focus of Minute Tech this next week will be to discuss Veterans day and veterans from six viewpoints.

Today's viewpoint is just to understand. To take some time to reach out with your mind and "understand" all the facets of the word veteran. To serve. To fight. To kill. To police. To adjudicate. To enforce. To provide.

Understand
Thinking about veterans day is difficult because it encompasses a huge realm of emotions. To serve is an emotional decision. To stay at home while one serves is an emotional decision. To deal with return of a loved one is an emotional issue. To deal with no return of a loved one is a life-changing emotion.

Perhaps the best way to deal with Veterans day is to Thank all Veterans, equally...and to attempt to put yourself into the shoes, vicariously, of all others who made or lived with decisions made - the veterans are not the only veterans, but the families who supported them and the people with whom they came into contact during their time of serving: the townspeople, the supporting country and the "enemy combatants" of any conflict are now veterans. Huge ranges of emotions are encased in the one word "Veteran" - and the best way to deal with it is to take a moment to understand.


podcasting/blogging tidbit:

What is it to Twitter? What is it to blog? At what point do you feel burn-out....or do you have some way of recharging to discourage burnout from even entering your vocabulary?

Twitter is a good place to both gauge that in yourself, and recharge it. You gauge your potential for burnout when you see all the positive or negatively-charged comment streams and determine where you are within that stream....and take web journeys based on the TinyURL's posted by others to recharge: see the serious, see the business, see the social, see the inspirational.

Take a ride on Twitter. Let me know what you think!

Thats all for today on Minute Tech podcast.
you can reach me at minutetech@gmail.com -
and my blog is at minutetech.blogspot.com

- The Calendar;
- What is Veterans Day?
- How to you experience Twitter-verse?

Go to the Minute Tech iWeb page to subscribe or listen to this podcast: Minute Tech.

phyllostachys 42.26: Minute Tech 026

Show notes/transcript for Minute Tech 26:

26 - What is Lampwork glass?


- The iPhone's European debut; Yellowstone rises;
- What is lampwork glass?
- Cisco's earning estimates yields 9.5 Richter scale quake.


Good morning, this is the Minute Tech podcast -

coming to you for Friday, November 9th, 2007

We take a few minutes to talk about technology
----
This is Alex Landefeld with minute tech 26 - What is lampwork glass?

Tech items:

Apple's iphone goes on sale today in Germany and the UK. While they don't expect quite the sales volume as the US had, I think that the intent of the halo effect is both well understood and works well...

Yellowstone park is sitting on top of an extinct volcano - did you know that?
one of my scientific interests is the type of thing that could affect us all, volcanoes being one of those things. I keep an eye on volcano news worldwide, and through some of this research had already learned that the geysers at yellowstone are the remnants of an eruption some 70,000 years ago. But did you know that all of yellowstone sits atop a 40-mile wide volcano that blew it's top - and or fell in upon itself, some
640,000 years ago? The entire volcanic field of that region spans some 300 miles, and the recent news is that for the past three years the magma, or lava, chamber under Yellowstone has been pushing up to the tune of 3 inches per year for the past three years - more than three times the rate since record-keeping started in 1923. Probably no cause for alarm - unless you expect to be around for another 50,000 years.

Astronomers have detected a 5th planet orbiting a star some 41 light-years distant from our solar system...which puts it well within the local neighborhood. This seems to signify that perhaps a star with multiple planets may be a common celestial occurrence.


tech question:

I mentioned art glass yesterday. Let's ask my wife Jennifer what lampwork glass is:

[insert]

you can find jennifer on the web at themacmuse.blogspot.com

podcasting/blogging tidbit:

Okay, so some small part of this podcasting is going the way least expected. I really am realizing that this is, in part, therapy for me. In general, the only therapy I need is an internet connection, or two hours in the evening with my family, but us liberal arts majors tend to have many interests, so I need to think through the investing angles too.

I am not at this time an investment professional, and do not hold myself out as an advisor. People may ask me for advice, but I always advise taking whatever I say and then do their own research - they may use the same free online resources I use, or they may use others.

Whatever I talk about, assume that I'm some how involved with it. If I talk it down, think through my comments and may consider that I may be selling; conversely, if I talk it up, assume that I may be buying on my own account, and therefore consider whether my comments are good observation or merely hype.

There are 3 things that're important in all of investing, whether you're jane investor putting her monthly saving into XYZ mutual fund, or BHP Billiton seeking to buy out Rio Tinto for 124 billion dollars:

finding
deciding & holding
maintaining perspective
more on these later.

Thats all for today on Minute Tech podcast.
you can reach me at minutetech@gmail.com -
and my blog is at minutetech.blogspot.com

- The iPhone's European debut; Yellowstone rises;
- What is lampwork glass?
- Cisco's earning estimates yields 9.5 Richter scale quake.

Go to the Minute Tech iWeb page to subscribe or listen to this podcast: Minute Tech.

phyllostachys 42.27: Minute Tech 027

Show notes/transcript for Minute Tech 27:


27 - What is touch-screen glass?

- Apple's iPhone sells 10,000 units in Germany;
- What is touch-screen glass?
- Pittsburgh computer companies; Semi-Coherent Computing podcast.


Good morning, this is the Minute Tech podcast -

coming to you for Saturday and Sunday, November 10th & 11th, 2007

We take a few minutes to talk about technology
----
This is Alex Landefeld with minute tech 27 - What is touch-screen glass?

Tech items:

Apple iphone sells some 10,000 phones friday in Germany. much speculation that as the German population is 1/4 the US population

phones being sold through t-mobiles stores in germany

what is wplug? western pennsylvania linux users group

founded in fall of 1997 with Jeremy Dinsel, of California university of pennsylvania

Red Hat released Fedora 8, the free version of Red Hat's Linux product, this past week.
Ryan Paul at Ars Technica references the PulseAudio sound daemon as the most impressive feature

Tech Question:

what is touch screen glass?

Apple's iphone and ipod touch uses a scratch resistant glass surface, with a subsurface that detects the users electric field and responds with screen interaction.

wikipedia describes several techonologies that can be associated with a touch screen interface: the Capacitive touch screen panel of the iPhone and iPod touch have a coating that carries a continuous charge that detects touches by unshield human touch, since the human body had a slight electric field (that's how signals get from your fingertips to your central nervous system).

other touch screen technologies:
An infrared surface might either detect thermal interaction with the screen or disturbance of vertical and horizontal light beams.

a SAW or surface acoustic wave technology detects the disturbance of a sound wave that's passed over a surface.

A resistive touch screen has several layers which include electrically conductive and resistive layers, separated by a thin space - when the two layers come in contact, the resulting electrical charge provides the interface.

in related technology, a graphics tablet uses a grid system to transmit coordinates to a receiving circuit in the pen, identifying location information on the tablet, useful for artist to simulate painting or drawing.

podcasting/blogging tidbit:

Attended a pre-wedding party for a lucky Pittsburgh couple at a local Dave and Buster's facility - the attendee's were a sort of who's who of the local university computing establishment. Some of the people I met work at a local software company called Sherpa software - they produce e-mail management systems for MS Exchange and Lotus Notes - their motto is "Your guide to email terrain".

Of two other couples we interacted with, one is associated with IBM via their Almaden research facility in San Jose, CA, and the other with Seagate technology in Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh, because of Carnegie Mellon and Pitt, has become an interesting computer company town, with offices for Seagate, Apple, Intel and Google, as relatively recent startups like Panasas.

The Register, a British Internet-based technology newspaper, has a podcast called semi-coherent computing, by Ashlee Vance, interview with Dave Patterson
Talking about Dave's history of studying RISC & multicore processing, as a well as his authorship of paper at Berkeley in 1985, with Garth Gibson of Panasas, the seminal paper on RAID storage architecture.

How to make computing more powerefficient, and how many multi-cores to add to pcs? When will software writers say enough cores are enough? And when they do cry uncle, will that stop meaningful software development....or is the accumulation of multi-cores just another facet of Moore's law?



- Apple's iPhone sells 10,000 units in Germany;
- What is touch-screen glass?
- Pittsburgh computer companies; Semi-Coherent Computing podcast.

Go to the Minute Tech iWeb page to subscribe or listen to this podcast: Minute Tech.

phyllostachys 42.25: Minute Tech 025

Minute Tech 003 - What is a Tool?

Show notes/transcript:

25 - What is glass to a modern human?

Good morning, this is the Minute Tech podcast -

coming to you for Thursday, November 8th, 2007

We take a few minutes to talk about technology

----

This is Alex Landefeld with minute tech 25 - What is glass to a modern human?


Tech items:

Don't Panic was written in big friendly letters on the front of what travel guide?

Okay, here's my panic item. I'm afraid as to what this podcast could turn into.

You see, one of my minor obsessions (a liberal arts major can have many) is the stock market.

Within the stock market, I'm a tech stock junkie.

My maternal ancestor has asked me for the past 36 months if I have any hot tips...and all I could say was "Apple Computer".

So, please beware....if I'm talking up a company...I could well be long that company, and singing its praises.
By the way, I don't, as yet, sell short on companies - I can stomach risk....but I'm not yet ready for that much risk. I take Rothschilds suggestion to buy at the sound of cannon...but not to extremes...though it's at the extremes where the most return can be had.

So, the best way to deal with this type of obsession is to feel around the edges of it. A tech podcast might be a good start, as long as it doesn't focus on tech stocks, but on technology in general. Will you forgive me if I periodically sink into investing as a topic?


tech question:

Okay, if yesterday's litany of the methods of glass manufacture over the centuries wasn't boring, I have a 1963 version of the Encyclopeaedia Brittanica you could read next.

What am I really trying to say about glass here?

Its an incredible technological item...one of the easiest things to take for granted. Window glass, eye-glasses, light-bulbs, automobile headlights, traffic signals, computer screens, for which alternatives to glass are constantly being sought. Where will it stop?

My chief concern, which is probably a non-concern is: how would we cope if our way of life came to a standstill? Think about it. I guess with our just-in-time method of food production and delivery, we'd all starve before we could worry about replacing broken window glass, so why worry.

My other concern is a love. I know, i know...love is not a "fact", its a feeling...and feeling are what make this earth, for humans at any rate, really spin. Facts are for the Mr. Gratgrinds of the world....a nod to Charles Dickens.

The love is for Art glass. Art glass is glass produced for the purpose of enjoying looking at the shape, color or texture of the glass rather than using it for any particular utilitarian purpose. Hopefully more on this tomorrow, if I'm able to get a special guest to tell us what lampwork glass is for.

Suffice it to say, Dale Chihuly's work is out of this world....and yet, so much a part of it.


podcasting/blogging tidbit:

Seesmic is something new.

Pistachio, a.k.a "Laura Athavale Fitton" of Pistachio Consulting, has been twittering of late of her trip to India and filming gigs there. Several times in her short sub-140-character posts she mentions the word "seesmic". Okay, what is that?

google it. Seesmic is another San Francisco web startup, which is a purveyor of video content. Check out their web page, which had video's documenting the startup of their company. One of the interesting items on the blog of founder Loic Le Meur is about his recent visit to the White House to meet President Bush during a reception for French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The idea of Seesmic being a video version of twitter comes to life as Mr. Le Meur details the buildup to the visit, with an over-arching question: if you were to spend 30 seconds with Pres. Bush, what, honestly would you say or ask? Very interesting question.

phyllostachys 42.4: Minute Tech 004

Minute Tech 004 - What is a Document?

Show notes/transcript:

Hello, this is the Minute Tech podcast -

coming to you on Saturday & Sunday, October 12th & 13th, 2007
We take a few minutes to talk about technology

This is Alex Landefeld with minute tech 4 - what constitutes a document?

004 - document - what constitutes a document?

tech news - Youtube, one of many online video sites, having been gobbled up by the Google (the new Borg?), can be both a source of entertainment and a source of learning. Periodically, though I might troll the site for vids of lego figurines engaged in light-saber duels and going to pieces over their day-to-day anxieties, I've also used Youtube to variously catch up on the news surrounding Bungie's new game Halo 3, and solidify my recent learning of wu style tai chi. My teacher won't yet let me include him in video documentary....but many others have done so for posterity's sake.

Youtube:

Lego figurines
Bungie's Halo 3
Wu Style Tai Chi

tech question - What constitutes a document?

A document (noun) is a bounded physical representation of body of information designed with the capacity (and usually intent) to communicate.

A document. A collection of words: a letter, a recipe, an agreement, a newspaper, a pamphlet, a sign, a chart, a map (insofar as it includes words in key's, indexes, etc.)

you can create a document with paper and pencil, pen, quill or crayon, or on the computer you can use everything from a basic text editor such as vi on Linux, Edit on ms-dos, Notepad on Windows or TextEdit on Mac, to publishing programs such as Quark, Pagemaker, or Apple's new Pages program.

podcasting tidbit: Listening to podcasts is a similar activity to reading a paper or magazine, or watching your favorite shows on the one-eyed baby sitter: you can pass away the time with aimless talk (many tech podcasts have "after-shows" which are far more entertaining than the show content), or you can find extremely on-point information for your interest areas. One such podcast, John Foster's Beer School, initially sounds like aimless conversation...but suddenly the tun's of information jump out at you, if you're in a receptive mindset, and sends you scurrying to google, wikipedia and the local library for further information on the arts of beer-making and the horticultural aspects of grains, hops and yeasts.

Show notes:
Tech item - we discuss the uses of Youtube: watching vids on Lego figurines, Bungie's Halo 3, and Wu Style Tai Chi

Tech question: What constitutes a document?

Podcasting: podcasts can be aimless, or highly directional - in this way, they are similar to the media forms that preceed them: newspapers, magazines & television.

phyllostachys 42.3: Minute Tech 003

Minute Tech 003 - What is a Tool?

Show notes/transcript:

003 - Minute Tech 3 - What is a Tool?

tech news - iphone approved apps
http://www.apple.com/webapps/productivity/
reQall - the real question here, despite the cool app: when will they IPO?

tech question - what is a tool? screwdriver, hammer, personal computer, Mainframe computer, calculator, a stick for drawing ants out of ant-hills? Ask your 5-year-old what a tool is - stretch their imagination with this one!

podcasting tidbit -
Do you have a Favorite blog or blogger?
Two who are frequently linked to from finance.yahoo.com
Seeking alpha -
the brazen careerist - is your image hurting your career?

Two insightful Pittsburgh women are putting software reviews and observations together on two blogs
themacmuse.blogspot.com posts about hardware and software - see her rebate code for the Drobo USB storage device!
LyriqueTragedy.blogspot.com posts about writing, education, books and life.

phyllostachys 42.2: Minute Tech 002

Minute Tech 002 - What is a blog?

Show notes/transcript:

002 - blog/vlog - what does blog mean?
Thursday, October 11th, 2007

tech news - RAID - the old acronym for redundant array of inexpensive disks is being redefined, in a sense: Panasas, Inc is releasing an extension to the RAID paradigm that they call Tiered Parity Architecture. go to www.panasas.com for mroe info

tech question - what is a blog? a web log, a place to write your daily, weekly or just periodic thoughts, ideas, plans, gripes, etc.

podcasting tidbit: MacCast PME episode, along with various blog snippets from Chris Brogan and Christopher Penn, are the influences for my creating this podcast. If you have something you can say, take the initiative to say, say it well and say it enthusiastically.

phyllostachys 42.1 - Minute Tech 001 show notes

This commences the posting of show notes for the Minute Tech podcast.


001 - word processing - a person or a software program?
Wednesday, October 10

tech news - the ipod dev team "update"
tech question - word processor - the person and the software
podcasting tidbit: marketing over coffee

Phyllostachys 41: Minute Tech podcast

When creating a daily podcast, do you really shoot for 7 days a week or 5? I haven't decided yet. But, I do like talking about all sorts of technology: current news, the elements of technology, answering people's questions, and reviewing blogging and podcasting.

Check out the Minute Tech podcast.

..phyllostachys.

Phyllostachys 40: 24HCM2 Interview with Joe DeFerrari

One of the 24 Hour Creative Marathon's sponsors is an interesting organization called Unicorn Mountain. Unicorn Mountain's creator, Joe DeFerrari was present for and active in the 24 hour marathon. Logos.Blip.TV talks with Joe about his artwork, the marathon, Unicorn Mountain and Pittsburgh.

Click To Play

Phyllostachys 39 - Rachel Sager @ the 24 Hour Creative Marathon

24 Hour Creative Marathon: some come to create, some come to sustain themselves on caffeine for 24 hours, some come as organizers and others come to creatively document what the others are doing. Rachel Sager had attended the first 24 hour Creative Marathon earlier in 2007, and came to the second to push along the creative impulse - a constant challenge for all of us.

Click To Play

Phyllostachys 38 - 24hcm2 Interview with Kelly Andreson

Logos.blip.tv's first brush with Kelly was as the instigator of artistic creation by Mike and John...but Kelly's intensely focused painting of surrealistic & slightly macabre scenes captures the videographers camera...and imagination.

Click To Play

..phyllostachys.

Phyllostachys 37 - Mike Woycheck & John Carman at the Creative Marathon

Mike and John came to the Creative Marathon to provide support and assistance...never suspecting that they'd be "encouraged" to by creative. Well, encouraged they were, and create they did. Although they expect that art dealers from Coruscant will swoop down and pay thousands of Republic credits for their respective works of art...they also were just having fun putting hands into messy, messy paint! :-)

Click To Play

Phyllostachys 36 - Creative Marathon Interview with Michael Fulk

Michael Fulk is working on ideas for the Creative Marathon - some of us enter the room full of inspiration, and some, like both Michael and me, must work at drawing inspiration out of the energy flowing through the room. Michael is a student at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh; he currently macro-blogs from blog.mfulk.com and micro-blogs as minkar.

Click To Play

Phyllostachys 35 - Creative Marathon Interview with Josh Sager

Sitting at the 2nd 24 Hour Creative Marathon's registration desk, coaxing the likeness of a robot out of a gessoed canvas with his paints, Josh Sager is able to greet guests, drink Burn soda, talk with artists and converse with his muses all at the same time. With multitasking like that, you'd think even an artist would wilt by the wee hours of the morning...but Josh was still going strong:

Click To Play

..phyllostachys.

phyllostachys 34 - Creative Marathon

The 2nd 24 Hour Creative Marathon is upon us, and the artists are in full swing. They've come, they've seen, and they either painted, drew, blogged, twittered, video'd or...slept in preparation for the upcoming daylight, during which they'll each perform according to their artiste muses.

After a long work day yesterday, I picked up my wife near her place of work, at midnight, Friday, Sept 28th, and we drove on over to Bellevue, PA's Creative Treehouse. My goal for the evening was to talk with the artists and entice a few to allow me to interview them on-camera. This morning's first video is an overview of the scenes from last night and of the various people with whom I spoke. There, amidst the cacophony of music playing & people talking in a large, open room...several people slept in preparation for the final leg of the Creative Marathon.

Click To Play

..phyllostachys.

phyllostachys thirty-one: DJ G of The G SPOD

This interview is the twelfth in a series of short interviews by Alex Landefeld of fellow attendee's and presenters at PCPGH2. DJ G is the host and co-producer of Pittsburgh's G Spod podcast: "dj G brings you the real queer folks from Liberty Ave and beyond." With co-producer John Carman, DJ G is also a sponsor of Podcamp Pittsburgh 2.

PodCamp Pittsburgh 2 (PCPGH2) is was a FREE BarCamp-style community UnConference for people who create, enjoy or are interested in learning more about blogs, vlogs, audio podcasts, web video, content networks and new media monetization.

Click To Play

phyllostachys thirty: Podcamp Pittsburgh 2 Interview Retrospective

Click To Play

phyllostachys twenty-nine: Norman Huelsman

This interview is the eleventh in a series of short interviews by Alex Landefeld of fellow attendee's and presenters at PCPGH2. Norman, along with Justin Kownacki, Jia Ji and others, was a co-organizer of Podcamp Pittsburgh 2, and Bootcamp Pittsburgh in April, 2007, both of which were held at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh.

Click To Play

phyllostachys twenty-eight: Chris Thorn

PodCamp Pittsburgh 2 (PCPGH2) is was a FREE BarCamp-style community UnConference for people who create, enjoy or are interested in learning more about blogs, vlogs, audio podcasts, web video, content networks and new media monetization.

This interview is the tenth in a series of short interviews by Alex Landefeld of fellow attendee's and presenters at PCPGH2. Chris is a local Pittsburgh podcaster: he and his friends Dave and Rob podcast weekly a news-of-the-world show titled "That's Good to Know" -- with minor focuses on the comics and podcasting industries. Chris can be found posting, under the aegis of That's Good to Know, at his Blogger and MySpace pages:

Click To Play

phyllostachys twenty-seven: Mike Sorg

This interview is the ninth in a series of short interviews by Alex Landefeld of fellow attendee's and presenters at PCPGH2. Mike Sorg podcasts locally through Wrestling Mayhem Show (wrestlingmayhemshow.com) and produces interviews through Western Pa Juggalos (westernpajuggalos.com).

PodCamp Pittsburgh 2 (PCPGH2) is was a FREE BarCamp-style community UnConference for people who create, enjoy or are interested in learning more about blogs, vlogs, audio podcasts, web video, content networks and new media monetization.

Click To Play

phyllostachys twenty-six: Grace Piper

This interview is the eighth in a series of short interviews by Alex Landefeld of fellow attendee's and presenters at PCPGH2. Grace Piper is the Director of Production for the nascent Devour.tv and has been producing the Fearless Cooking vidcast, at FearlessCooking.tv -- "I READ COOKBOOKS THE WAY SOME WOMEN READ ROMANCE NOVELS":

Click To Play

phyllostachys twenty-five: Joan Dickerson

This interview is the seventh in a series of short interviews by Alex Landefeld of fellow attendee's and presenters at PCPGH2. Joan Dickerson is a local Pittsburgh digital artist, a nascent podcaster and a recent member of the Pixel Corps.

PodCamp Pittsburgh 2 (PCPGH2) is was a FREE BarCamp-style community UnConference for people who create, enjoy or are interested in learning more about blogs, vlogs, audio podcasts, web video, content networks and new media monetization.

Click To Play

phyllostachys twenty-four: David Tessitor

David Tessitor, of pghfree.net, is an Allegheny County Council-at-large candidate. David has a long history of organizational and political involvement in the Pittsburgh region and is partaking in his second Podcamp Pittsburgh event, the first having been the PGH Bootcamp in April, 2007:

Click To Play

phyllostachys twenty-three: Melissa & Michael

Melissa Robison, of MyDesignSelfStudy, and Michael Domingo, of Nante Koto: Online Dating Misadventures Podcast, gracefully consented to an interview at Podcamp Pittsburgh 2 on Sunday, August 19th:

Click To Play

phyllostachys twenty two: Tommy Vallier

Tommy describes himself thusly on Twitter: "Bio: Web developer, podcaster in training, general web geek. I live online when I can... I mean really, why not?".

Now, take a green frog, tie-dye rainbows, dv-camera-toting podcasters, free coffee and breakfast treats, sessions teaching all from branding to recording, and copious after-dinner drinks, and you have a great recipe for a podcasting conference with a little bit of Tommy Vallier mixed in.

The interview with Tommy represents the fourth in a series of eleven Podcamp Pittsburgh 2 interviews to be posted to Alex Landefeld's logos [dot] Blip [dot] tv videoblog site. Check out the previous three, presenting from first to third: Mark Rauterkus, Steve Brady and Richard Horn.

Noticing a severe misrepresentation in his interviewing for such a broad-based event as Podcamp Pittsburgh 2, Alex resolved to interview more women on his second day of shooting...and that's what he did, as we shall see from the next round of interviews to be posted.

Tommy Vallier's interview:

Click To Play

..phyllostachys.

phyllostachys twentyone: Happy Birthday, Norm!

Everyone at Podcamp Pittsburgh 2 wishes Norm Happy Birthday. Without his invaluable enthusiasm and assistance, we'd be podcamping in Point State Park! ;-)

..phyllostachys.

Click To Play

phyllostachys twenty: pcpgh2

PCPGH2

Why Podcamp?

Click To Play

phyllostachys nineteen: Podcamp Pittsburgh 2!

My weeks are defined in part by my long driving commute...and my driving commute is made more endurable by the podcasts I listen to. Listening to the twit.tv, pixelcorps.tv, maccast and venturecast podcasts have been most entertaining and educational...and have encouraged me in part to join the pixelcorps.com community. Searching on iTunes this past week for "investing" turned up a few new ones of interest. I listen on an iPod Shuffle, 2nd Gen - I like simplicity in my technology. :-)

Here's this weeks listing, with parenthetical notes on frequency:

The Index Investing Show (new)
this WEEK in TECH - AAC Edition - TWiT 109 (weekly)
this WEEK in MEDIA 65 - Hello Doctor Quest... (weekly)
PodcasterNews: The Engaging Brand - Show 102 - Engaging Communities (periodically)
MacBreak Tech: Living with the Finder (new)
Marketing over Coffee Marketing Podcast (weekly)
The Index Investing Show (new)
NYT: David Pogue - 8/2/07 - (periodically)
Options Insider Radio: Ep. 7 (new)
Options Insider Radio: Ep. 6 (new)
Options Insider Radio: Ep. 5 (new)

Review Notes:
- the Index Investing Show is interesting - very focused on diversification, which is always good.
- the MacBreak Tech show is a very good overview of Finder, with Jon Foster and Ben Durbin of PXC.
- Options Insider Radio is very good, especially for an options newbie like me. Very good intro to the industry. New podcast (8 episodes).
- Anna Farmery's Engaging Brand is always a Must Listen...and this one tops the list! Great interview.
- David is a long time friend, so it's cool to see how well he review's tech. Cool overview of IP telephony.

See you at Podcamp Pittsburgh 2, today! :-)

..Alex.

phyllostachys eighteen: phone vs. phone

Googlephone vs. the iPhone? Are you kidding?

I've seen some interesting comparisons in my time...but this is like comparing a skateboard to a Toyota Camry - they both travel the same highway...but one provides access to markets the other doesn't.

If people are still looking at the iPhone as, well, a "phone", they're way missing the bigger picture: iTunes, YouTube, oodles of customers walking through iMac and Macbook-laden Apple Stores, non-Apple users getting used to Apple's flawless product development strategies. The iPhone is so not just a phone - it's an introduction to a whole product cycle - it's so more of a "halo" product than Saturn's Sky or Pontaic's Solstice...or even Microsoft's Halo 1st, 2nd and third generation games, which were designed to win folks over to the Xbox.

Still think Googlephone is an Apple competitor? :-)

..phyllostachys.

phyllostachys seventeen: Podcamp Pittsburgh 2

So, inevitably, with PodcampPittsburgh2 weeks away, I feel a podcast comin' on!

I've been somewhat focused on the fascination of "podfade"...and I've allowed time and the summer...and procrastination...to cause my own podfade with MinuteLit and MinuteLit Tech. Well, no more!

First some blogging/linking, though:

I check google news daily for Apple, and found this interesting story about the new Scion xB.

Podcamp Pittsburgh2 is coming soon to an Art Intstitute near you! (As long as you live in Western Pennsylvania! ;-)

I've been doing a one-up-style vid-cast called Logos, at Logos.blip.tv. This is a vid cast about Words...and the most recent Word was Vacation. We went south from Pittsburgh to the Shenandoah valley region of Virginia, visited a vineyard or two and spent some time reading, filming and surfing - water this time, not the net!

I've been lisening to lots of podcasts in the past week or so, after finishing JK Rowlings latest wrap-up masterpiece. MacBreak Weekly, This Week in Media, This Week in Tech, MacCast, CBC Radio's Quirks and Quarks, Marketing over Coffee, The M-Show, VentureCast, VentureVoice...and much, much more! Whew. Those guys (and gals). Leo LaPorte, Alex Lindsey, Kenji Kato (sp?), Craig Syverson, David Hornick, John Dvorak, etc. All current tech news, all very good tech know-how. All this banter actually go me interested in Pixelcorps, whose online training/community I joined for the summer...and hopefully beyond. Digital tech is, well, enthralling. Thank you, Killashandra Ree! :-)

Saw on slashdot Friday this thought provoking article: New Theory Explains Periodic Mass Extinctions. Very interesting. For those of you who follow science theory/fact, this makes me speculate that those finding extra-solar planets will begin in earnest searching out those planets which perhaps don't have the same galaxy-style wobble that the Sol system has, in the hope of identifying a longer-live species environment. Do you agree? Disagree?

That's it for now. The next thing I was going to talk about was Options...for background on that, check out my logos.blip.tv videos!

ttyl,

..phyllostachys.

phyllostachys sixteen: LibraryThing.com

My journey was quite typical for me: starting at news.google.com, I linked to the science pages, on which I found a link to a company doing quantum computing. So, I next googled the company's website, read through the main page - the company is really building a quantum computer...if ever there was a push to Verner Vinge's Singularity, this has got to be it! ;-)

About half way down the page there's a link that reads "D-Wave, in the Founder's Words" -- "Dr. Geordie Rose speaks out on a wide range of topics, including the media myths and misconceptions about quantum computing." Interestingly, you don't see many links on a company's website that link off to another location, so this must be interesting.

Personal blog pages are becoming something of a resume on the web, but I've never seen a link to a person's favorite list of books. Dr. Rose had a link that said, under the heading "Geordie's Books", there was a link to something called "My LibraryThing". I mean, books are sooooo 19th century, aren't they??? Intrigued (as I am about books generally, anyways), I linked on over to this strange term labelled "LibraryThing".

Linking, hypertextually across the web, is how I learn many new things. That's why I love using finance.yahoo.com - there are so many great tidbits of information...and so many links to new and different ways of organizing all that information. With Googles' new News search utility, I don't need a "news aggregator" separate from news.google.com...it is my news aggregator. I look through the top news section, link over to Business, or Science, and if I don't see anything interesting, I type in a search term, such as "Apple", after which you'll see all sorts of news (or blog posts, linked to at the bottom) about the iPhone, Cisco's friendly battle about tradenames...and sometimes something like "there's a bad apple in every workplace", a sociological piece about working with others.

So, imagine my surprise, not knowing what to expect, when LibraryThing turns out to be a way for people to list the books they own, and do reviews on some or all of those books. Okay, that's simple. My spouse uses something call Readerware, where you can scan in the ISBN bar code, and Readerware will link out to some web site and download the entire meta information, as well as recent sale prices. Naturally, if you're posting your books on the web, you want to sell them, right?

Not so at LibraryThing. This, as it turns out, is a social website, one of the new breed of internet sites, a la Myspace, Facebook, Blogger, etc. Once you've entered in a book, either by ISBN, Library of Congress number, or just a portion of the title, you're presented first with a list of matching titles -- there may be different editions, publish dates, types of media (book, audio, dvd), or people may have entered the title information differently. Once you click on a title that looks correct....it pops into your list of recently added titles. Then LibraryThing's internal programming takes over, and on your profile page you see lists of other LibraryThing users who similarly have the same books as you do in their personal library. Now, on the surface, that's just interesting. But...thinking socially, if someone collects (and presumably) reads books similar to your own, perhaps there are other similarities. Do you see where this is going? Myspace is the place for kids and restaurants and young adults to post their favorite bands, favorite clothes, favorite shopping malls, etc., thereby linking to others on similar social interests. But LibraryThing actually may show, specifically if the person has started reviewing books, beyond the actual, but sadly frequent one-liners: Ice Towers by Duncan McGeary "It certainly isn't any better to be in Icetowers compared to Snowcastles", something about the person he or she wouldn't ordinarily reveal - this same type of revelation is sought by many readers in the writing by some authors, such as the reporter-shy Thomas Pynchon. (The Icetowers was reviewed by "bluetyson", an Australian LTer who has actually reviewed some 3100 books, so perhaps the periodic one-liner can be forgiven in this case.)

Somehow, after surfing about in LibraryThing for the better part of an evening, I came across the page of LyriqueTragedy. This name was interesting to me, in part because of my classical Greek undergraduate degree, and the obligatory studies of Oedipus Tyrannus (Oἰδίπoυς τύραννoς), etc. The voice behind LyriqueTragedy is a university lecturer, a reviewer of books (not only in LibraryThing, but also via Blogger posts and LiveJournal entries), and an aspiring writer. Here's where the beauty of the web as a communications medium shines through: after a week of communication, LyriqueTragedy may be willing to produce a netcast (podcast) with me, which is potentially to be called "Minute Lit". I've already produced episode 1 with this description:

"Minute Lit - the netcast for reading and discussing the single and assembled words of literature -- Episode zero-zero-one"

My next part of the process is to design, with LyriqueTragedy, a few more episodes, and figure out how to produce it to the web. The direct source of my Podcast fever, as mentioned in my previuos post, is PodCamp Pittsburgh. If you can put together interesting content, you'll draw interested listeners.


bye for now.

..phyllostachys.

(update: I figured out how to post this netcast to the web. Apple's ".mac" makes this very easy!)

phyllostachys fifteen: PodCamp Pittsburgh Nov. 10-12, 2006

Nothing like a tech conference to get me back into my blog...especially a _free_ tech conference. :-)

A good friend sent me a note about an "un-conference" called PodCamp - a conference devoted to audio and video blogging - how to do it, what to do, etc. Ten minutes later I was signed up as an attendee (the sign-up is wiki-based)...and 24-hours later I had posted my plans for a presentation titled "Video to Web: Shoot, Assemble, Publish to Web".

The conference is the second of it's kind and the first to be held in Pittsburgh. The first PodCamp was held in Boston, at the Bunker Hill Community College, on Sept. 9th & 10th, 2006. People have been audio blogging for a while (considering an audio blog, or "podcast", is effectively a pre-recorded radio program, designing for distribution via the web in a compressed file format), so the PodCamp is long time in coming. The Boston event seems to have been very well attended, with bloggers from other locales flying into Beantown for the event. You can download or stream some of the podcasts of the PodCamp Boston sessions.

Although Apple's iPod is by no means the first mass-market digital music player, it is certainly the coolest [I supposed that's debatable, and therefore a biased statement] and best positioned with an established supporting music/video sales arm, iTunes. With this marketing double-whammy that Apple has ingeniously submitted to the computerized world, the inevitable "xerox-ization" of the name "iPod" has occurred, with all sorts of "pod" words popping up in the modern vocabulary. This has gotten so pervasive that Apple is flexing it's legal muscle, suing various organizations by suggesting that the "pod" syllable is theirs and theirs alone. I won't give an opinion about which side is correct....but my phrase "xerox-ization" I believe explains both the fate and the eventual outcome of the matter - the syllable will be/is firmly ensconced in the public domain as a metaphor for all things digitally audio and video.

I personally have been shooting video and publishing via Apple's iMovie and Google's video site for many months. Though I am by no means an accomplished filmmaker, I am implementing inspiration as it occurs. My most recent production, "Apple Festivals 2006", was a fun short produced by my son and I before attending two local Apple Festivals, each occurring on opposite ends of the Pittsburgh metropolitan area from each other on the same day...hence my use of Google Earth within the video - it allows lots of "hopping" around the globe.

This film shows that though amateurish, I am using the great resources provided by Apple on every Macintosh, iLife '06. The iLife suite of applications includes iMovie, for production of films from digital video "footage", and GarageBand, for creation and assembly of digital audio. You can use iDVD to burn to DVD...or just find a web-based distribution location (your own website or one of the many popular sites). I suppose a high-speed digital connection (DSL or cable) is a given...though I know even the US is nowhere close to a 100% market saturation of high-speed access - though this is improved by such services as Verizon's wireless services.

So, on to planning for my PodCamp presentation...and planning my next video (plugging the house that my wife and I are trying to sell).

..phyllostachys.

phyllostachys fourteen: Fathers Day

I was hard at work yesterday morning...when my wife came in and said "What are you doing???!!! You said you'd be out cutting the lawn!!!" Well, back into the doghouse! :-)

What I was doing was attempting to put together appropriate music (in GarageBand) for one of the oldest and most eventful father's day stories of all time: the homecoming of Odysseus, who hadn't seen his wife Penelope and son Telemachos for nearly 20 years (10 years for the Trojan War, 10 years for the trip home). There are scads of references to fathers in the Odyssey: Zeus is a Father, Odysseus has a father, Telemachos has a father, Polyphemus the cyclops has a father (Poseidon [or Neptune, depending on a Hellenic or Roman bent of the translator], who causes so many travails for Odysseus), and each of the Greek kings reference their fathers (kings of Sparta and Pylos, where Telemachos travels in the first book of the Odyssey).

It's really almost too much for an aspiring bard to comprehend! So, what follows are the lines I've adapted for a later-to-be released musical compilation (there are arguably more appropriate lines...further re-reading will bring those to light).

Since I could not finish the musical masterpiece for your listening pleasure....I dissuaded my young son from watching a movie, took him with me while I went up to take a shower, and proceeded to tell him the short version of the trials of Odysseus:

-- of Telemachos' travels to Sparta and Pylos for news of his father,
-- of Odysseus' homecoming (on Fathers Day, of course),
-- of how he identified himself definitively to his wife Penelope (the construction of their bridal bed, and the stringing of his hunting bow),
-- and of how he, Telemachos, Athena (in earthly garb) and several helpers dusted off the scores of suitors eating and drinking in the household that day.

Happy Fathers Day, Dads!

..phyllostachys.

Telemachos' Fathers Day:

"The gods were discussing
in the halls of Olympian Zeus,
the fate of Odysseus, of the tears of
his wife Penelope and his son Telemachos

The goddess, grey-eyed Athene, said to Zeus
"Father, son of Saturn, King of kings,
I will conduct Telemachos to Sparta and to Pylos,
to see if he can hear anything about the return
of his dear father --
for this will make people speak well of him."

"My mother," answered Telemachus, "tells me I am son to Odysseus,
but it is a wise child that knows his own father.
Would that I were son to one who had
grown old upon his own estates,
for, since you ask me, there is no more ill-starred man under heaven
than he who they tell me is my father."

"I will tell you the truth, my son," said Odysseus to his son. "It was
the Phaeacians who brought me here. They are great sailors, and
are in the habit of giving escorts to any one who reaches their
coasts. They took me over the wine-dark sea while I was fast asleep, and
landed me in Ithaca, after giving me many presents in bronze,
gold, and raiment."

http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/dyssy10.txt

phyllostachys thirteen: Used Books - Read 'em!

Used Books - Read 'em!

I am addicted to many things in life: breathing is chief amongst them addictions, but also coffee, daydreaming, the stock market, bamboo, used books and the opposite sex...not necessarily in that order. As with most addictions, each finds its way into all the nooks and crannies of my life (sequentially, of course - men can multitask as well as women...as long as the tasks are sequentially ordered! ;-).

Used books are no exception. I haven't found a used bookstore I haven't liked (although like/dislike has a graduated scale) - each offers hours of browsing and thinking. But, the best used bookstores are sometimes those without a store presence. Let me give you an example.

I've found a cool used-book bookstore called Paradox Books near where I work in Wheeling, West Virginia. I've made some great finds at Paradox, from books on wines of the world, to great sci-fi, and more recently, a $1 copy of Benjamin Graham's "The Intelligent Investor" (New Revised Edition, (c) 1964). In keeping with the area's flavour, Paradox also has a full range of Playboy's, dating back to the late 60's. ;-)

Aside from selling books, etc., inside, Paradox has a large bookshelf outside of it's front door, somewhat protected from the weather. This shelf is there so that the book-addicted person, who comes and finds the store closed for some reason, has the chance of satisfying his or her thirst for yet another used book. In addition to this outdoor bookshelf, Paradox has a table of books in the Centre Market (the cool little market in which Coleman's Fish Market is an anchor tenant) which are free for the taking. Yesterday, I perused these books during my lunch break, and walked away with two tomes: "The Federal Reserve System: Purposes and Functions" (by the system's Board of Governors, (c) 1961), and "Modern Introductory Analysis" (a Houghton Mifflin textbook from 1964). I nearly picked a book on an introduction to symbolic logic...but an inquiring mind can latch onto only so many new tangents of thought/learning. ;-)

So, an addiction appeased for a few more days. Although I'm currently reading the "Intelligent Investor" book, I really want to learn more about the Fed, now that we're having a changing of the guard at the helm of the Fed (from Greenspan to Bernanke). I suppose I could go to the Fed's website (or to www.wikipedia.org, for that matter), but a book still has lots of appeal. I'll crack the other book to see what I can learn in a short time about analysis (mathematics is a foreign language I'm continually trying to expose myself to)...and to see what ideas I can introduce to my 4-yr-old. ;-)

So, go read a book...a used book!

..phyllostachys.

phyllostachys twelve: picking up, moving on

Hurricane Season, 2005, has just about left the stage. Civil unrest (aside from certain invasions) is just about to take center stage. And, the Northern Hemisphere is just about to weather another winter. Although the possibility of higher fuel prices is waning with the memory (in non-affected areas) of Katrina, Wilma, Beta, etc., higher energy costs are here to stay.

How, then, can we afford these prices? By working a little bit harder, a few longer hours (easier during the shorter days of Winter), and with more intent to a warmer (or at least more solvent) future.

Working harder is easy for me to say...I have had a string of decent jobs over the past two decades, each of which seem to have helped pay the bills and allowed me to put some away for a rainy (or graying) day. But what about those people who are under-employed, ill-employed (just barely suited to the task) or not employed? It's easy to say "get a job"...but the great leveler is that we may each face a point of uncertainty in our lives in which we don't know which way to turn, where the next meal, roof or paycheck is going to come from.

At my level (such as it is), it seems easy for me to take solace in learning: I know, from education in the past, that I can read, study and learn much of that which I'll need to get ahead...and learn on-the-job that which I haven't learned yet. For self-directed as well as community-guided learning, a great leveler was the public library...and more recently, the Internet: both provide easy access to copious amounts of information to anyone willing to (1) walk into a library (learn how to open a web browser), (2) know how to read (how to search) and (3) find gobs of information that you need to learn from or are having fun learning from.

But as economics or nature remove access to such excellent public institutions (thanks, in the U.S. to Andrew Carnegie, among others), we are left with challenges as to how to get the information to the masses....without exposing paper to the elements. Proliferation, therefore, of computer technology to the masses, with a built-in browser linked to the ever-expanding presence of a search engine (e.g., Google) seems to be a potential answer. Currently, one needs to be literate to access the media on a computer....soon, however, video (and, on the horizon, VR?) and 3D interaction will allow greater numbers to access all the information they need to improve themselves (and hopefully not blow up the rest of us -- a very real concern in a world of open information and relatively open borders/airspace).

So, the key to bringing the masses along with the "digital haves" is to encourage increasingly better methods of education, increasing levels of health (thanks to orgs like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) and increasing access to the digital libraries of the world.

..phyllostachys.



2005 Hurricane Names

The Gates Foundation

Adam Smith on Wikipedia

phyllostachys eleven: Do you hear the winds of change?

Change is coming...can you hear the surf recede, with the fish flopping on the beach of your life?

How do you encourage your peers that saving all that they can versus spending all that they can is the course of action they should be pursuing? I don't know...I think we each have to come to that realization in our own time...constant reminders from friends and media can begin to be somewhat nagging. But that realization must be there - hopefully sooner than later.

I hear the winds blowing in my ears: Greenspan is retiring, metals and oil are priced way high, China and India need more energy resources...as the industrial focus moves across the Pacific and Indian oceans, Western religion is on the wane (just as it was 1700 years ago), Eastern religion is as strong and thriving as if the past 1300 years had not just passed, the earth is slowly warming up, with polar caps shrinking and water levels rising...and we're continually discovering more Solar System objects which may cross Earth's future path.

All we can do is continue to learn, and exhort others to do the same. A friend has issues with alcohol and cardiovascular disease...a dangerous combination. As a friend, I can just support and encourage more water intake vs. alcohol...something we all should strive for.

I picked up a used book last night for 50 cents, at the used book shelf at Apple Hill Playhouse in Delmont, PA (just before the curtain rose on Neil Simon's "The Sunshine Boys"): "The Interpretation of Financial Statements," by Benjamin Graham and Charles McGolrick (1955). This is a cool little book intended to privide any investor or teacher with standard insight into how a company's financial statements should read...and as a possible introduction to the more in-depth analysis of investments in Graham's "Security Analysis." One of my primary gauges for the health of a company is the "current ration," or current assets to current liabilities. Graham points out "When a company is in a sound position, the current assets well exceed the current liabilities, indicating that the company will have no difficulty in taking care of its current debts as they mature." Graham takes it a bit farther by excluding inventory (depending on how an enterprise treats inventory) in what's call an "acid test" of the "quick assets" (exclusive of inventory).

Knowing your way around a company's balance/income/cashflow statements can provide quick insight (though only a snapshot) into the apparent health of a company, Enron or Francisco d'Anconia (of San Sebastián Mines fame) notwithstanding. My favorite place to review all aspects of a company is Yahoo!'s Finance site, http://finance.yahoo.com. Check it out. :-)

..phyllostachys.

phyllostachys ten: John Maynard Keynes

An acquaintance at the public health club where I swim asked me "who do you think are the greatest investors?" My answer was that other than an investing great like Warren Buffett, I'd say someone who has amassed wealth by investing time, sweat and money in building their own company - Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison all jump to mind. My acquaintance asked if I'd heard of Keynes.

Well-read investors should have heard of Keynes...and I have, having first been introduced to him by Louis Rukeyser's book-on-tape series on the history of Economics. Keynes was the British Economist known primarily for developing the policies that most readily led the US and Britain out of the woods after the "Great Depression" of the '30's.

According to Time Magazine:
"Keynes' basic idea was simple. In order to keep people fully employed, governments have to run deficits when the economy is slowing. That's because the private sector won't invest enough. As their markets become saturated, businesses reduce their investments, setting in motion a dangerous cycle: less investment, fewer jobs, less consumption and even less reason for business to invest. The economy may reach perfect balance, but at a cost of high unemployment and social misery. Better for governments to avoid the pain in the first place by taking up the slack."
The Time 100

My acquaintance said that in addition to being an effective and well-respected ecomonist, was also a very successful investor. Said Keynes, "Successful investing is anticipating the anticipations of others," which is, of course, what the markets are all about - successfully navigating the torrential runs of human emotion in trading. After this conversation, I went home and did some Google searches on Keynes and investing....and found some interesting guidelines...which sounded eerily like a quote from the Oracle of Omaha. Now, of course, I cannot refind that quote...I'll relay in a later post.


On the subject of books, I noticed that my acquaintance had brought a book for reading on the treadmill. He showed me Jeremy Siegel's new book, The Future for Investors. I'd never heard of Siegel, but have since learned that he's a Wharton School finance professor who wrote Stocks for the Long Run in 1994, in which he touted that stocks have been the best investment vehicle since 1802 -- he touted this just before one of America's greatest bull markets. Siegel has his own website (see below) and was featured in a WSJ article on 05/05/05 about his new theory that retiring baby boomers will sell all their assets...and the markets won't be saved unless billions of Indian and Chinese investors step in. A controversial idea, of course....but how the heck else do you get people to argue and plan for the future? :-)


..phyllostachys.

BTW, today is the inauguration of the use of Google's adsense on this site...let's see how we do. :-)

For more on Keynes, see:
The History of Ecomonic Thought website

For more on Siegel, go to:
Jeremy Siegel's website