Author: smartpeopleiknow

Some thoughts on twitter, and blogging, and blogging again

I like twitter. Simply stating I have over 42,000 tweets should be enough to prove that.

I like blogging too. I’ve been blogging on this blog since 2007, and on other blogs since around 2005.

Like many bloggers, somewhere along the way I went from blogging alot, to a bit, to hardly at all. Meanwhile, tweeting has more or less stayed the same.

It hasn’t helped that a number of tools that I used for blogging and to make blogging easier have died off, but it would be wrong to blame the tools. It’s simply that tweeting is easier and writing blog posts, even simple blog posts, is much harder.

I plan to try and reverse that over the next few months, or at least make an attempt. I have been inspired by some people I follow on twitter, much better writers than I, who manage to tweet good stuff while blogging really good posts on a regular basis. While their tweets are fine, I get so much more out of the longer blog posts that they write.  I don’t know if the same goes for me, but I hope that will be the case for at least a few people who follow me on twitter as well.

I also miss the “log” part of my blog. I always find something when I look back over older blog posts. Tweets, in comparison, just roll on.  I hate the thought of losing the good things amongst the things I share. Blogging also forces me to think harder about topics, at least the ones I care about. Tweeting is conversational for the most part. Finally, I have gotten good feedback on some blog posts, feedback that has been rewarding and encouraging. I miss that too, and with some luck, I hope to regain it.

Elysium is like Blade Runner (and other reasons I really liked it)

If you were to read the reviews of Elysium in places like Rotten Tomatoes, you might think it was going to be mediocre at best. Instead, I think it is brilliant and will be appreciated more as time goes by. Here’s some random notes jotted down on why I liked it very much.

It follows the same pattern as Blade Runner: the longer I watched Elysium, the more it reminded me of Blade Runner. It is a immersive, dystopian world centered in Los Angeles. Only the poor live on earth, while the better off live off world, tended to by robots. In Blade Runner, the lowest form of life (the replicants) are in desperate need of expert attention to survive. In Elysium, it is the poor who need medical attention to survive. While they are trying to get help, they are being chased by killers trying to stop them.

While there are similarities in the story lines, there are also similarities in the reimagining of Los Angeles.  Ridley Scott imagined LA as a dystopian mixture of punk club and Japan, all cast in darkness. Blomkamp imagines it as a sunbaked shantytown with no end. Both are bleak places, and both represent a vision of the times they are in even as they are cast into the future.

Like Scott, Blomkamp has a great eye for detail. In particular, with the wealthy. There are all sorts of details, from the Versace healing beds, to the watch Jodie Foster wears to the luxury vehicle that Matt Damon’s character attacks midway through the film. The wealthy live in neat, opulent spaces while the property of the poor is caked with dirt, dark, piled up and messy, and Blomkamp does a great job of setting the stage with a high level of detail.

Overtime, the influence of Blade Runner has grown and grown, as has it’s stature as a film. I predict that as Blomkamp makes more films, he has a chance to have his films seen the same way. Elysium may not gain the following that Blade Runner has, but over time, I believe it will be appreciated more than it currently is.

It’s an big budget action film: District 9 was impressive in that it managed to be embody many genres, from Science Fiction, documentary, horror, buddy film, action film, with lots of politics and even romance throughout. (Watch it again: it is dazzling to see it all come together.)  Elysium is a big budget action film, and while that gives Blomkamp freedom in some ways, it restricts him in others.  I think some viewers were let down by those restrictions and were expecting something closer to District 9. I was happy that he got to make another film like this that had a good chance of attracting a similar audience. Why?

It’s agitprop: I think it is amazing that Blomkamp got to make an agitprop film. A big budget agitprop film, with big international stars.  Underlying all of the action and drama of the film is the message that immigration and health care restrictions are bad, and that the wealthy need to have a responsibility to share and help the less fortunate, not shun and ostracize them. To emphasize this, Matt Damon’s character is an ex thief and working class, and the woman he loves is a nurse, while his chief adversaries are cut throat politicians, CEOs, and the henchmen that do the ugly work on their behalf.

It’s not Costa-Gavras, but in this age when most big budget American films are based on cartoon characters, it is both extraordinary and influential. Maybe not influential for viewers who think about these ideas all the time, but for many people, this will have more influence on them than any serious documentary (which they would never go to) would have. Agitprop needs to go where people live, speak to them in their language: not have them come to it, speaking down to them.

It is the present dressed up as the future: watching Elysium, I was struck by how close this future is. LA is not a shantytown, but shantytowns exist everywhere.  There is no city in space, but in much of the world there are resort hotels and resort cruise ships which may as well be in space for the people that live there.  There are no flying cars or drones yet, but the drones are practically here and autonomous, if not flying, cars are just a few years away. It is a dystopia, but not a far off one. As well, immigration and health care are big topics of discussion in the United States of America right now: that they are a big part of Elysium can be no accident. Like much good SF, the future is near and drawn from the Now.

It has flaws: overlook them. There are a fair number of flaws with Elysium, but I felt that was because Blomkamp was taking current reality and moving it into the future, flaws and all. Or he was focused on illustrating a point. All SF has flaws — anyone who ever watched a SF film with time travel will tell you that. And to insert ideas into a fast paced action film risks introducing more flaws.  But to write off the film for those flaws is to miss out on a lot.

It nicely pays homage to other SF, including District 9, Wall-E, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner, and no doubt more. SF fans can enjoy watching the film just for references.

Why the Surface RT Failed and the iPad Did Not (Not)

Nick Bilton tries to explain the failure of the Surface with one cause, here: Why the Surface RT Failed and the iPad Did Not – NYTimes.com. While I think this is one potential reason, I also think there are many reasons why it failed. Here are some more:

  • Too expensive: comparatively to other tablet devices. Even if it was alot better, customers would be more likely to go with the equally impressive and less costly iPad or Android devices.
  • No need for the product: if the other tablets lacked in some capacity, perhaps the Surface would have taken off. But the needs of tablet users was more than met by what was in the market.
  • Network externalities: what used to work for Microsoft now worked against them. It’s not enough to develop a tablet: you have to develop all the things tablet users expect and support that as well. Otherwise you have to go to the commodity market.

Invalid reasons would be:

  • Microsoft can’t do hardware: Microsoft can do hardware. Their XBOX line in particular is nowhere near the weakling of the Surface or Microsoft’s earlier hardware failure, the Zune.
  • No one can compete with Apple: Google in conjunction with Samsung and others are doing a good job of competing with Apple.
  • There is no room for more hardware in the market: again, Google and others have shown it is possible to compete in this space.

I don’t think Microsoft is done in this space. But I think they may approach it differently. We’ll see in the next two years.

Some thoughts on online calculators that save you money

I like this site: Washing Machines: Cost per load of washers — Ask Mr. Electricity

It gives you an online calculator and shows you how much you can save by changing the way you do laundry.

A good exercise would be to have an entire list of such calculators, run them all, and total up how changing a few simple behavoirs can save you hundreds if not thousands of dollars. The accumulation would really impress people, I think.

Dedicating a tree or bench in Toronto

The City of Toronto has a great program that allows you allows you to pay tribute to someone or some event by purchasing a park bench or tree for installation in a public park through their Commemorative Tree and Bench Program. The details are here. It’s a wonderful way to be remembered, I think. Check out the link to find out more.

(Blog post text partially taken from their site.)

Father’s Day Gift Ideas….

…can be found at many places online, but Pinhole Press has some really good ones. Since a lot of father’s are into beer making these days, why not make Dad some sharply branded labels for his best concoction, such as these?

At this link,

Cheers To Dad | Pinhole Press

, you can see they have labels for beer, wine, and more.

Pinhole Press makes great looking products. Even if you don’t have a Father in your life, I recommend it.

How some on the right wing distort the discussion on Health Care in the United States

First off, here’s Avik Roy’s recent article in Forbes, proporting to show how Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is terrible: Rate Shock: In California, Obamacare To Increase Individual Health Insurance Premiums By 64-146% – Forbes. I know about this, because I read Paul Krugman on it, here: We Are Not Having A Serious Discussion, Obamacare Edition. Between that and this piece by Ezra Klein, here (The shocking truth about Obamacare’s rate shock), you can see how the right uses distortions to argue against the ACA.

It is good to be skeptical and concerned about big changes in government programs. And despite what the left might say, there is sufficient waste to be gutted, such as these conference expenses, Report finds IRS spent $50M for conferences, according to House panel, not to mention things listed here, Government Spending Waste: 25 Wasteful Items – Business Insider. But critics should be honest and forthright in their criticism. That is in everyone’s best interest.

Healthcare is a complex topic. It’s important to get it right and to explain it clearly. I think that even with the ACA/Obamacare approach, Americans aren’t going to have the best system in the world. But it will be better than it is before, and the way to it improve it and keep it in check is with honest disagreements, not distortions.

My latest technical paper on Cloud Architecture is here on developerWorks #geekish

The paper, Select the correct cloud adoption pattern, was co-written with a very talented IBMer, Tina Abdollah.

As cloud architectures get more complex, patterns can help cloud architects communicate what is needed. If you are looking to develop more complex cloud architectures, take a look at the paper and see if it helps. Thanks.

 

 

My favourite movie trailers

Most movie trailers are mostly advertisements for a film, and while they are well edited, they are often just teasers composed of alot of short clips. Some trailers, though, are small films in themselves. Two such trailers are this one, for the movie, Comedian.

And this one, for the film, Somewhere.

Both of these can easily stand alone as things that can be watched in themselves.

You can find them here (Comedian Movie Trailer – YouTube) and here (Somewhere Movie Trailer Official (HD) – YouTube).

My favourite IBMer is the Cookie Monster

From the technologizer blog is the story of how Jim Henson made quite a few short films with some familiar faces before he went on to make Sesame Street and The Muppet Show. They were made between 1966 and 1976, and include such classics as this:

(Note the teeth: a feature dropped later on.)

For more videos and more on this story, check out the blog.

(Video: Cookie Monster for IBM – YouTube)

A better way to change the size of your instance on Amazon EC2. #geekish

Let’s say you have a micro instance on Amazon and you want to make it bigger, either because it is too slow or you don’t have enough memory. You want to change it from a micro instance to a small instance.

One way to do this is to stop the instance and then right click on it and select the action: change instance type. If you see the new size you want, you can select it and then start the server.

However, that won’t work for all instance types. (For example, if you want to go from an m1.medium to an m1.large). In those cases, try the following approach. First, create the small instance. Make sure it is in the same zone as the micro instance. Indeed, try to keep as much the same as possible, including using the same AMI ID, security groups, key pair names, etc.

Second, once it is up and available, write down the instance and the instance ID and the volume IDs of all the volumes attached to the old (micro) instance and the new (small) instance. Also note how each volume is attached to the instance.
Third, stop both instances
Fourth, detach all the volumes from the small and the micro instance.
Fifth, attach the micro volumes to the small instance and the small volumes to the micro instance. In effect, you are swapping the volumes of two instances. Make sure you attach them properly.
Sixth, start the small instance and the login to the instance to make sure all the volume are attached properly and operational. Start up any processes or software you need on the new small instance and make sure it is working properly.
Seventh, if things are not working, stop the instance and swap the volumes back. If things are working, after a period of time, you can delete the old instance. Make sure the volume associated with it is gone too.

Finally, the other way to do this is create a small instance and then set it up the way you did the micro instance.

You should read Maria Bustillos on the new Internet Skeptics. Here’s why.

Maria Bustillos captures Evgeny Morozov nicely in this Awl piece and pins him up so all can see the flaws in his thinking (U MAD??? Evgeny Morozov, The Internet, And The Failure Of Invective | The Awl). Anyone impressed by Morozov’s skepticism and negativity owe it to themselves to read this. While the Internet and technology in general needs more skeptics, they deserve better skepticism than Morozov’s.

She also covers Jaron Lanier, and while she takes a few good swipes in his direction, he manages to escape the fate of Morozov. Earlier I recommended not bothering with Lanier’s book (Jaron Lanier is wrong again | Smart People I Know). Based on her review, you could argue that you would find some value in reading Lanier. I still believe it’s not worth your while, but Bustillos is a sharp reader and if you has found value in his work, then you may, too.

I’d like to see her take on Nicolas Carr at some point. He’s another one that seems to get a pass when it comes to making pronouncements on the negative effects of the Internet.

 

 

Do you worry about work?

Then you should read this article: Worry Isn’t Work – Dan Pallotta – Harvard Business Review.   Key quote:

Worry isn’t work. Being stressed out isn’t work. Anxiety isn’t work. Entertaining a sense of impending doom isn’t work. Incessant internal verbal punishment isn’t work. Indulging the great unknown fear in your own mind isn’t work. Hating yourself isn’t work.

Work is the manifestation of value, and anyone who tells you that a person whose mind is 50% occupied with anxiety is more likely to manifest value is a person who isn’t manifesting much.

The part I highlighted is most important. Your goal at work should be creating value for your customers, your employer, and yourself. It’s the best way to maximize all three. If you are worrying all the time, you are never going to maximize them. You are never going to do the best job you could be doing.

Read the article. Think about what you are worrying over. Leverage the notion of achieving more value to help you reduce and eliminate the worry.

Jaron Lanier is wrong again

Jaron Lanier has a new book out called “Who Owns the Future?” and like his last book, “You are Not a Gadget”, he is out promoting it. (Jaron Lanier: The Internet destroyed the middle class – Salon.com.) In this Salon article, you find this:

“Here’s a current example of the challenge we face,” he writes in the book’s prelude: “At the height of its power, the photography company Kodak employed more than 14,000 people and was worth $28 billion. They even invented the first digital camera. But today Kodak is bankrupt, and the new face of digital photography has become Instagram. When Instagram was sold to Facebook for a billion dollars in 2012, it employed only 13 people. Where did all those jobs disappear? And what happened to the wealth that all those middle-class jobs created?”

When I read this, my first impression is: wow! Instagram in combination with other forces destroyed Kodak and all those jobs. Impressions are deceiving. In fact, what destroyed Kodak was Kodak management. As early as 1997, Kodak was under fire from Fuji and doing poorly (WHAT’S AILING KODAK? FUJI WHILE THE U.S. GIANT WAS SLEEPING, THE JAPANESE FILM COMPANY CUT PRICES, MARKETED AGGRESSIVELY, AND NOW IS STEALING MARKET SHARE. – October 27, 1997). Indeed, while Kodak has gone down, Fuji continues to do well, as I point out here: In considering Kodak’s demise, it’s important to remember that Fuji is still going strong | Smart People I Know.

The problem with Kodak was Kodak. It couldn’t deal with Fuji or the Internet. But Fuji was smart enough to do so, and if Kodak was as smart, they’d still be a going concern and alot of Kodak jobs would still exist.  If Lanier hasn’t done enough research to see that, I don’t know how much value you will find in his book. Maybe he gets alot more right and this is just a bad example, but I doubt it. Indeed, I blogged about him when he wrote his last book and how I thought that that book was troublesome: Jaron Lanier needs someone else to promote his new book, “You are Not A Gadget” | Smart People I Know. I’d expect more of the same from this book.

I don’t know what motivates him to write these books. He seems to get a pass when he does write them and the people who interview him seem to be impressed with his credentials and his appearance. To add to that, he is a well spoken individual, and I think there is even something in what he says. But I also think his writing is lazy and uninformed, and if you do wish to read authors critical of technology, I recommend you look elsewhere.

Why didn’t Stephen Harper use this to track what his MPs are saying?

Whether or not you are the Canadian Prime Minister, I highly recommend openparliament.ca. In particular, I  really like how if you type in your postal code, it will show you the MP that represents you and also give a run down of what they are doing in and out of Parliament. So, not just their voting record, but their twitter log! Brilliant stuff. Well worth a look.

Some things to think about in between one work week and the next

If you find that you are feeling overwhelmed with work or the people at work, then you might find either one of these articles from the zenhabits blog to be useful: 13 small things to simplify your workday and 10 Ways to Deal With the Non-Simplifying Others in Your Life. If you read them now and then go on with your weekend activities, you may find that you have a plan to deal with these difficulties, come Monday. At the very least, knowing you have options can help you have a more relaxing weekend.

Good luck! Bon courage!

No time to workout? Got 10 minutes? Good, you only need around 7 minutes to complete this workout.

Need a good workout? You need this: The Scientific 7-Minute Workout – NYTimes.com. Do these 12 exercise, 30 seconds per exercise with 10 seconds in between, and in 7 minutes you have worked out all your major muscle groups.

If you take 10 seconds between each exercise, it adds up to 8 minutes. If you take no time between exercises, it 6 minutes. Either way, in less than 10 minutes and you are done.
If you want the details on how effective this is, the paper on it is here: HIGH-INTENSITY CIRCUIT TRAINING USING BODY WEIGHT: Maximum R… : ACSM’s Health & Fitness Journal.