Alamo by ~Gekko-chou

Last week I was at a conference in San Antonio. I had to join the event on Saturday but was not required to take part in any activities on Sunday morning. I thought I would take the opportunity to go for a short walk and see the Alamo. Since there was an IMAX theater on the way, I felt compelled to check out what was playing at the time and noticed that a show about the battle of the Alamo was about to start in a few minutes. Quick change of plans and I was watching the battle on the giant screen. I had no idea that the battle had taken place February 23 – March 6, 1836. I was watching the movie on February 28th – 174 years later.

A two minute walk from the theater and I was standing in front of the shrine. It was an experience of a lifetime. I was humbled to stand there remembering those who had perished.

Average Joe by ~weaponx263

Friday. Tired from a week of constant barrage of e-mail, calls, issues, and people. Finished the last call of the day. Completely finished, wasted, empty arrived at the dinner table. Across are sitting two beautiful children excited that I am theirs at last. But work got the best of me again leaving little for them. After dinner he wants to play with Lego characters, she wants to dance and be a princess. I can’t stop thinking about the dozens of projects, tasks, problems, things to do, things I forgot to do, the phone calls I couldn’t make, the calls I should have made. Another hour, they’re sleeping. I hear the Olympics on TV where the best of the best compete. Back to childhood and my mother where I was one day to be a best in something, in anything. I am not a best. I am not even good enough! Not a good enough father, not a good enough son, not good enough at work, not good enough in anything… Stop! Destructive thinking. I am a role model for them. I must find the energy to work harder, to be better. Maybe this is a phase, a difficult phase. I need some rest.

Mirror Mirror by `Fredy3D

A few weeks ago, I had a fantastic meal with my good friends at Massimino’s, a nice little Italian place in the North End where we gather once a year to catch up and remember the past. This is a group of truly special people.

Eight, maybe nine years ago I was assigned to help implement a financial system at StateStreet. Little did I know about the true complexity of the project and the history prior to my assignment to the project. To sum it up, it was a mess! A multimillion dollar implementation on the brink of failure, this project seemed impossible and probably would have been scrapped. Multiple weekly status meetings with 40-50 people (at least 30 consultants @ ~$300 /hr), half dozen project managers with their assistants, an entire floor in the most expensive building in Boston, the best hardware costing over a million dollars, and much more didn’t seem to matter enough. Yet somehow this team of special folks managed to successfully roll out its piece of the project. It’s a nice annual surprise to hear that the system is still in use globally.

Even though  I have worked on many projects since then, I haven’t been in a similar team. It is even more troubling to see some of the latest currents that seem to sweep across this great society. Here are some observations.

We have all of the great communication technologies yet we’re less connected. I am certainly not talking about efficiency of transactional communication or the productivity gains from instantaneous dissemination of information. We seem to be less connected with transformational life-long relationships. At work, many of us stare at computer screens all day long with little time to actually talk to people outside the transactions we conduct. On Facebook, as a close friend pointed out, we see status updates that scream of loneliness and boredom. Instead of bowling or golf, many have the living room computerized “equivalents.” We have everything yet we have nothing.

To contrast this, I remember life back in Armenia back in the dark days when we had no electricity, no telephone, no running water, nothing! My father would joke that of all systems of communication/infrastructure only the sewer system worked (and even that froze one day in the dead of winter). We had hardly any food and I had to go for a daily fight for a loaf of bread. Yet in that environment we were (incredible to imagine) happy, never bored or lonely. The space/time for those days is no longer; only memories remain.

Today we are well connected exchanging / processing hundreds of e-mails, instant messages, text messages, tweets, phone calls, video chats, blogs posts and comments yet so many seem to be lonely, alone and feeling completely disconnected and alienated. TV commercials scream about depression and insomnia drugs and other remedies to address anxiety disorders. Netflix, OnDemand, and YouTube bring thousands of channels of passive “entertainment” yet it seems people need even more despite some of the videos and programming being pure trash.

The industrial revolution has ruined our external environment. Technological revolution seems to be ruining our internal environments. Or is it just a mirror?

The Kitchen Sink by ~rmsk8r05

A user interface (UI) is the set of means by which we interact with a system. I have probably mentioned in the past that I view almost everything as some type of a system or a component within a system. These systems all have UIs. In many cases, the UI is all we get to see from outside. The best systems have exceptional foundations and inner-workings in addition to their simple, clear, and easy-to-learn user interfaces. Let me give you a couple examples.

Every house has a UI. A coat closet in the wrong place, a door swinging the wrong way, or a light switch across the room all contribute to minor annoyances we typically get used to in an older home. Inside the house system, key components of the UI of the plumbing sub-system are faucets and sinks. Does the refrigerator have a user interface? Of course!

Take the system of government. Does that have a UI? Certainly! Move from one state or country to another and you may feel as helpless in dealing with basic tasks as in moving from one computer operating system to another. The frustration grows when the new UI is worse (less intuitive, with more flaws, lacking in features, etc.) than the prior one (even if the inner structures are better). Our frustration also increases when an interface to which we are accustomed changes for the worse over time.

Our impressions of the experience of interaction are hinged upon the interface presented. A beautiful and delicious meal at a nice restaurant with outstanding service creates an impression of an organized and efficient kitchen. Is this always the case or is it an illusion created by the restaurateur?

Here are some questions I cannot seem to be able to answer:

1. What allows one group of people to create a system superior to those created by other similar groups? Why is Apple able to create a computer that’s perceived to be easier to use than that created by Dell/Microsoft? Why are the founding fathers of America able to create a system far superior to that created by Lenin and his friends? Why is one town in Massachusetts able to govern itself better than another?
2. When we perceive the system to be superior to an alternative, do we really know everything about its internal structures, or are we just impressed by the user interface? Does the internal structure and foundation really matter? Example of this is “slapping a coat of paint before putting the house on the market.”
3. Is the user interface at all indicative of the underlying structural excellence? Can a system last the test of time if most effort (and investment) is toward the interface?
4. Why are some people able to create nice interfaces (such as beautiful web sites) while others cannot even maintain a system that’s given to them? Some people and groups seem to exist to run innovations into the ground.
5. Have we come too far? In contrast to our simpler beginnings when we had fewer systems and user interfaces (and fewer points of failure), have we created a monster by creating interdependent systems with complex interfaces in every corner of our life?

I suspect the answers depend on the perspective but it is clear to me that we are riding an interesting long-term wave of systems and interfaces. The transformation is faster than ever and the results more spectacular than ever yet basic humanitarian questions are far from finding their answers. Maybe the interface is getting more attention than it deserves in some departments of our life and not enough in others.

A Safe Flight Home by ~Ericana

Last week was devoted to Canada. Fairmont Château Laurier was impressive. The event was executed perfectly. My small piece went better than I had expected. In preparation, I learned a few things about the government in Canada. After the event, in a chat, I learned about a thought that could make everything we’re doing less relevant. I heard about a fear to remain relevant from my management earlier in the week. With these two tokens in place, I couldn’t get the word “relevant” out of my head.

What does it take to remain relevant? In free and advanced societies, these words seem to represent the essence of the battle. The quest to remain relevant brings out the best in us. We innovate, advance, improve and compete to obsolete the status quo. The worst sometimes comes out when we feel we are no longer important. A few weeks ago, someone special mentioned in a passing conversation that she wanted to live as long as she could be helpful. The challenge is that in our different roles as contributors, workers, parents, leaders, we must do everything possible to advance the current state of affairs but at the same time we know progress, innovation, advancement, money do not matter most. Some of us balance this by time division or by life division. Others don’t balance and focus on one set of priorities at the expense of others. Some fruits of labor remain relevant for centuries such as the Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto #2 in F currently playing on my computer. Sometimes we are only relevant for a few minutes. For example, when we give a stranger directions on how to get to where they are heading (the GPS innovation has decreased these opportunities significantly).

On the flight back, exhausted, I put on a set of noise canceling headphones to tune out the jet, and rest the restless mind a bit. The iPhone shuffle played this song:

In that near-perfect silence, this powerful melody somehow transported the tired mind back to what mattered most. My beautiful wife and little ones were waiting for me.

yin yang by ~kristuzhe

I had to drive to Albany to meet with the State of New York folks. The two hour drive each way provides ample time to enjoy the scenery and reflect. For the mathematically inclined, I have an important once in a lifetime date to celebrate on November 16th, 2009. On that day, I will have lived the first half of my life in Armenia, and the second half in America (not counting minor temporary absences) where I arrived on Henry Ford’s 130th birthday. The more time I spend in America, the less I want to go anywhere else. Strange… The more I live in Massachusetts, the less I want to travel to other states. Crossing the border on I-90 to New York seemed like I had entered a different country for some reason.

But I enjoy the ride on I-90 West. It brings back memories of my childhood when we would pretend we were heroes from the The Last of the Mohicans, a story that was what Star Wars is to my son. I feel bad that our children do not have a chance of experiencing a childhood similar to mine but maybe that’s what every parent thinks. The trees, the road, the scenery bring back thoughts of times past when people had to actually survive the harsh winters in these areas without the conveniences of today. How did they manage to do it? Life seems so hard at times yet the early settlers managed to live and with each generation make this country a better place. Then the mind wanders… how many people had to work to build a road like the I-90? How about all the roads in this country? Smooth and flawless, straight, with clear signs they stretch from coast to coast, from state to state. I drive some more and notice houses not too far from the highway. How do these people live? Where do they work? I drive some more and notice the McDonalds plaza. Didn’t I just pass one? Then I start to notice the NPR static, time to find the NY station. Ah.. I forgot that Marketplace is on in the morning here. Gloomy news about the economy, or no wait, it’s good news, no wait… Ah.. forget it.

Every time I drive on a long stretch of highway, I remember my mother. She once mentioned to me how much she liked going on long rides. The only long ride I can remember with her was the trip to New York City. What a wonderful time we had…

I am back now. The meetings went well. Next week I will spend a day and a half flying to Canada to speak for 20 minutes. How does that make any ecological sense?

With 10.2% unemployment, I better go drum up some business. Even if a few folks are hired as a result, maybe it’ll have been worth the effort.

Wolfram|Alpha’s long-term goal is to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable and accessible to everyone. We aim to collect and curate all objective data; implement every known model, method, and algorithm; and make it possible to compute whatever can be computed about anything. Our goal is to build on the achievements of science and other systematizations of knowledge to provide a single source that can be relied on by everyone for definitive answers to factual queries.

Wolfram|Alpha aims to bring expert-level knowledge and capabilities to the broadest possible range of people—spanning all professions and education levels. Our goal is to accept completely free-form input, and to serve as a knowledge engine that generates powerful results and presents them with maximum clarity.

So I asked the age-old simple Armenian question and this is what I received:

Ինչ կա չկա

Let me ask in Armenian.

Ինչ կա չկա – Հայերեն

Looks like they had been expecting my question. It seems they have built a machine that answers most complex questions but fails at simple ones. Give it a try anyway, it could become your new favorite toy.

I couldn’t resist and tried Google which gave me its usual list of useless links that answer every other question but mine.

Ինչ կա չկա - Google

Technological innovation has a long way to go before it reaches any kind of maturity or saturation. We are still only just at the very beginning.

bow to greatness by ~4dreamer

Our kindergarten teacher once told my mother that she thought I was a “մտավոր հետամնաց (mentally lagging)”. Couple weeks later we were given small paragraphs to learn for a performance. I brought home the handwritten piece of paper so my mother could teach me what I had to say. She instead corrected seven or eight grammatical and spelling errors with red ink and asked me to take it back to the teacher. This teacher I think had the wrong diagnosis. After years of denial and disagreement with my beautiful wife, I finally came to the conclusion this week that I probably suffer from some (maybe mild) form of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). When I mentioned this to her a couple of days ago, she smiled and said that she still loved me.

Along the lines of self-examination, I also rediscovered my “plain vanilla” nature lacking in extraordinary abilities and exceptional gifts. Maybe this is a blessing. Perhaps extraordinary people who can see more, understand more, command more also suffer more. I was reading about Enrico Fermi after a book recommendation from Rocky Humbert who kindly bought me a cup of coffee last weekend for which I completely forgot to thank him as we were having a most interesting and enjoyable conversation. Rocky is also someone with an extraordinary mind. My nuclear physicist friend once told me that the difference between exceptional and average people is time. That which takes me hours, days or years to learn or understand may take them seconds or less. Also, when I commit one hour or one day to a project, they commit a year or a lifetime.

Deep in the comments of an interesting post about hubris, Don Chu mentions that “the referential individual unit is certainly the level where all significant achievements originate.” I hope that the three-letter-acronym mentioned above will not get in the way of living my life of average achievements. Regardless, as Don says: “And the result in every case, always: mene mene tekel upharsin (numbered weighed, found wanting — divided).”

Ara Sarkissian and MUSANER

Last Saturday night we were at an interesting and special concert. Despite all of the efforts of the organizers to advertise to the local Armenian communities, only about sixty to seventy people came and most of them seemed non-Armenian.  I was very disappointed in the Armenian turnout but was very happy that my beautiful wife did not let me miss it. Ara Sarkissian had done a fantastic job organizing the folk-jazz ensemble. To sample some of the most beautiful Armenian sounds you can visit his Komitas Project page. The project is named after the great Armenian composer Soghomon Soghomonyan named Komitas after a poet and author of sharakans from VII century. Some of Komitas’ works can be freely downloaded from here.

Ara Sarkissian’s ensemble with majority non-Armenian musicians played a different kind of jazz, one that intertwined the classical with the modern, the Armenian with the non-Armenian, the simple with the complex, resulting in an absolutely great evening. Of these, the ratio of Armenian to non-Armenian sounds and the contrast between the two reflected life for me. We speak Armenian and English in roughly the same proportion and attend Armenian events and participate in the Armenian culture in a similar mix. The Armenian culture, with a smaller footprint in this country, in the world, and in his concert, nonetheless is very close to heart, special, and necessary for me as it was for his music. Also, Armenian culture can be understood, appreciated and celebrated by many non-Armenians the same way that the melodies were played and celebrated by his non-Armenian musicians. Just as some amount of reality is required in humor, some amount of life is required in art. The concert had a great amount of life and represented a welcome encounter with art.