Network Connections by phoenixkeyblack

Last February I wrote the following but left it as draft for some reason.

Last year I was able to connect with my classmates and childhood friends at the Russian Odnoklassniki.ru which some claim is used by successors of the KGB to keep tabs on overseas connections of Russians and others. Before that I signed up for LinkedIn hoping to never lose contact with colleagues. Then came Facebook for yet a few more friends and relatives. Some time has passed and I can see the usefulness of these “social networks” but while they all have continually improved their user interfaces and the network sizes, they have failed in one area. They can all list the connections but so far I have not been able to find one that tries to gauge the strength of the relationship.

Is it fair to treat all relationships the same? The best we have evolved to is grouping of relationships (friends, coworkers, close friends, etc.). Whoever unlocks the method of gauging the strength of the relationship will have discovered the next generation of social networking. Who is in a position to do this? Not the Facebooks and LinkedIns of this world, IMHO. I would place companies like Apple and Google on the map along with Verizons and AT&Ts but even these will have quite a struggle. A light read of the interpersonal relationships page will help understand the magnitude of the challenge.

Not all parent-child relationships are the same just as not all marriages are created equal. These are the easy ones. LinkedIn Outlook Toolbar will scan one’s e-mail to suggest contacts (based on numbers of e-mails exchanged). Does having frequent contact with someone result in a stronger relationship than having very infrequent contact? Is it even possible to quantify and digitize something as complex as human relationships? I think it is but will require capture and analysis of even more information.

Capture of on-screen (technology based) information is easier (and Googles, Apples and Verizons may be able to do that). The really hard part is the capture of the wink, the nod, or the smile that can make or break someone’s day. How about computing the trustworthiness and reliability of someone? I guess we are able to compute credit scores… but wait these are based on transactions. So maybe we can capture transactional relationships but what about the transformational ones (completely outside of systems)?

Sometime ago I wrote this post. I had no idea that Apple was working on the iPad. Perhaps someone out there is spending their days, weeks, and years trying to decode that which we value most – our relationships. I just hope the KGB doesn’t get a hold of that technology…

Mac-Man by ~blindguard

Every couple years I take stock of the latest developments in computer operating systems. It helps me get an overview of  innovations in computer technology and get up-to-speed in terms of what the “world” considers important for computers. Here are my impressions.

Apple and Google have done a lot to change the way we (the world) view computers and their roles in our lives. Apple’s operating system Mac OS X is elegant in simplicity and power. As a newbie I was able to get it up and running quickly (on an iMac) and within days felt right at home with advanced tasks available on Unix-like systems. From concepts like disk partitioning and file synchronization to simple tasks like chatting on Skype and syncing contacts, the whole system is designed to simplify life. Google has done the same with e-mail, pictures, searches, maps and many other areas, all in an effort to simplify life. In case of Google, the services are “free” but the motives are unclear (outside the obvious ad business). Apple does not suffer from this but has a high premium for its products (which warrant every penny when compared with the competition, IMHO). One could argue that while these companies have simplified our life in some ways, they have indirectly increased the demands placed on our time but this is for a separate discussion (some hints in Technological Revolution).

Microsoft changed our lives in the last couple decades. Windows Vista was a total disappointment. Windows 7 is much better and is probably the best Windows yet. Amazingly, most people I know (including myself) still use Windows XP. Many programs I use have a hard time running on 64-bit Windows 7. It consumes a lot of memory (for what?) and still has quite a few areas to improve. The simplicity of Windows 2003 was more acceptable but that was a server operating system (with a high price tag). Why Microsoft is all over the place is hard to understand but the results will eventually show it.

Linux has come a long way. I tried Ubuntu 9.10 and 10.04, Fedora 12 and 13, Debian 5.04, Oracle Enterprise Linux 5, and a few others. Of these I like the install of Fedora 13 and the usability of Ubuntu 9.10. Apple’s OS X is a far more polished Unix variant than all of these. What’s amazing about the Linux world is the global community’s efforts to enhance it and the corporate efforts to milk it, all with good intentions. It will be a while before these become mainstream enough to displace Microsoft and Apple. A simple task of getting Skype to work took quite a bit of research and modification of runtime parameters, for example. Apple knows this and requires its Unix variant OS X to run on its hardware. Try to run OS X on anything else and Linux will look like piece of cake.

A few other operating systems support their stated goals well but since most of us do not interact with them directly we often do not even know that they exist. Solaris, for example, is solid but is made for business servers. RedHat and Suse have their versions of enterprise Linux servers. There are the BSDs, and many others. While these may run systems that help change our lives, they do not directly change our perceptions about computers and their roles.

A lot has changed from a decade ago but the players seem to be the same. The question is whether a new player will emerge in this space to completely change the game. What disruptive innovation will completely displace all of these operating systems in the same way that these have displaced the prior generations (CP/M, DOS, VMS, so many more)? Will the inventions be in hardware land or incremental improvements on what we have today? Pages could be written on this topic, but let me stop here for now.

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.

Wisdom by ~ectrhoi

Daily Speculations is a blog mainly about the markets but hidden under the market context there are very interesting experiences, lessons, and thoughts about life in general. I have recently joined the discussion and hope to add my modest contribution (you can find what I have said so far by clicking on Legacy Daily in the list of the names on the left).

The wonderful human qualities that come across in the various posts include among others curiousity, humble acceptance of one’s own limits, celebration of knowledge and experimentation, respect for others and their words, separation of issues from people, recognition that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, belief in good human qualities, and passion for freedoms. Expressed points are often enhanced by people chiming in with their perspectives and sometimes with their disagreements.

Right next to the rubble of the Internet garbage there are sometimes jewels that sparkle out in the open. It is up to us to seek them. I cannot help but remember the very first sentence ever written when the current Armenian alphabet was created around year 400: “To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding;” (Proverbs 1:2). Having said this I feel compelled to include a small paragraph from Proverbs 1:

“20 Wisdom calls aloud in the street, she raises her voice in the public squares; 21 at the head of the noisy streets she cries out, in the gateways of the city she makes her speech: 22 “How long will you simple ones love your simple ways? How long will mockers delight in mockery and fools hate knowledge? 23 If you had responded to my rebuke, I would have poured out my heart to you and made my thoughts known to you. 24 But since you rejected me when I called and no one gave heed when I stretched out my hand, 25 since you ignored all my advice and would not accept my rebuke, 26 I in turn will laugh at your disaster; I will mock when calamity overtakes you– 27 when calamity overtakes you like a storm, when disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind, when distress and trouble overwhelm you. 28 “Then they will call to me but I will not answer; they will look for me but will not find me. 29 Since they hated knowledge and did not choose to fear the Lord, 30 since they would not accept my advice and spurned my rebuke, 31 they will eat the fruit of their ways and be filled with the fruit of their schemes. 32 For the waywardness of the simple will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them; 33 but whoever listens to me will live in safety and be at ease, without fear of harm.”

Progress by ~gursesl

When I catch myself thinking about something worth sharing, I take down a few sentences to come back to them in a future post. A few days ago, I wrote “An interesting longer term cycle seems to be repeating. We all learn something new every day but from time to time I find myself having the urge to learn a new discipline, new subject, or a new profession. The learning process is very exciting as it brings renewal and new ways of understanding the world. One such wave caused me to start learning English. Who would have thought where that effort would lead years later…” This morning I saw a comment from GM Davies where he says “Well I think that one very good thing to do right now is to invest in oneself. Whatever comes out of this people with certain skills and know-how will always be needed.” I couldn’t agree more but will take that comment a bit further by replacing “right now” with “ALWAYS.”

I have been working on a small project recently. I’m “writing” a small piece of software to automate one of my Excel spreadsheets with a goal of learning four or five new web technologies. The outcome may be less useful than the Excel spreadsheet but the learning will be worth it. If in addition, others find value in the outcome, then I’ll have more than achieved my objective. I won’t go into the details of it until I have something to show. But wanted to mention a couple points.

Learning does not happen overnight. This project is progressing very slowly and the result so far is nothing exciting or spectacular but I continue to spend a few minutes here and there as much as I can. Inch by inch, one small improvement at a time, I learn a new option, a new method, and a new statement. I often learn something new and find myself hitting the proverbial brick wall discovering that I need to redo a lot of what I have already created. Obviously, if I had all the knowledge up front, I would avoid the mistake in the first place, but that is the price to pay for learning the lesson. This process in many ways is similar to value creation and research, one step at a time with frequent setbacks but never getting discouraged to the point of quitting due to personal limitations. Learning lifts those limitations but does that in slow subconscious way.

The other thought I wanted to share is that of digesting knowledge created by others. I often have to refer to a web site or a sample created by someone else to figure out how to accomplish my task. It takes me ten seconds to find and use the knowledge that someone spent hours creating. Very often I jump from one site to another in fifteen minutes “digesting” many hours of the work of hundreds of people. Imagine that! How many people take a moment to think about the hundreds of people and the months / years of their life that go into creating a two hour movie? I said this to my father who after devoting most of his life to astronomy expressed some regret that “… all that work was for nothing …” It is not for nothing! His work is all over the Internet, referenced in many recent papers. We can never predict how the value we create will be compounded by others. The lightning speed by which new information, new knowledge, new thought (this post for example) gets absorbed by others and becomes part of them is absolutely fascinating. Credit is not always given, the source is often forgotten, but humanity progresses and we all fullfil our individual role in that constant march toward our combined ideals.

Simplicity by *chuscli

“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.” ~ E.F. Schumacher(?)

In discussion with a colleague, I mentioned that WordPress.org was able to provide very nice functionality with excellent usability through php, mySQL, and Apache. She said these were simpler technologies not particularly suitable for today’s complex corporate environment where more complete frameworks are required to satisfy all of the business requirements. I challenged her by saying that some of the blogs get millions of daily hits with this simple architecture while some corporate systems stall after a few hundred users. She told me that the data model in a blog is much simpler than in any corporate system. I know. I am just not willing to take this man-made complexity for granted. Call me obsessive compulsive when it comes to keeping the world simple but what I have seen and continue to see is simply excessive complexity.

In addition to the computer on which I’m typing this text, many structures around us are systems of varying complexities. Some of the complex systems make the computer seem like a basic child’s toy. Everything can be viewed as a system (often with many nested sub-systems) but here are some examples.

• The human body is perhaps one of the most complex systems with interlinked sub-systems made up of cell-structures, interfaces, etc.
• A corporation is a human system that can be as simple as a piece of paper and as complex as today’s multinationals are.
• Software, the Internet and all other computer systems are built up from many sub-components which further rely on sub-systems to carry out their tasks.
• Banks and markets are also systems playing their part in a larger global exchange, transfer, and conversion system.
• Houses with their electrical, plumbing and other sub-systems can be user-friendly, complex, with interfaces, inputs and outputs.
• Government is a complex multipurpose human system with impacts on all other systems.
• Universal health care initiatives are also systems with many participants.

I could list endless examples but just like an average gasoline engine, I hypothesize that systems built, managed, operated, maintained by humans operate at some very low level of efficiency. I am not just talking about productivity and other similar measures. I am suggesting that in aggregate we build inefficient systems and structures. I see this in computer systems all the time. I would further suggest the larger the system, the higher its complexity, and the lower its efficiency. If I had multiple lives, I would devote one to the study of this subject with hopes of finding a set of principles to guide new efficient system architecture and construction. Why do we need to do this? With the amount of inefficiency growing with complexity, we may find ourselves at a point where the maintenance of the system takes more effort (human lives) than the value of the system warrants (Soviet government). We may find ourselves unable to properly regulate (think AIG) and maintain the system. We may find ourselves challenged with enforcing ethical principles (Madoff) in the system. We may find ourselves slaves to these suboptimal systems that we have imposed on ourselves. When the systems choke us, we end up with a revolution. When the systems clash, we end up with wars.

Could the fundamental source be our insecurities and yearning to appear more intelligent, more capable, stronger… strong enough to handle complexity? Or is it that we are the inefficient, ineffective ones who are capable of creating nothing more than a highly ineffecient system? Is it our methods of education? Or perhaps for our systems to be efficient, we would need to become machines, losing all creativity. Could it be that each time we step into a system, we feel the need to make changes thus destabilizing the entire structure?

Wolf in Sheep's Clothes by *Skia

“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.” ~ Matthew 7:15

For trader types you can replace the word “prophets” with “profits” and Matthew is still right on the money. But this is about a different wolf – Google.

Six months ago, I was somewhat familiar with the SEO concept. This blog has helped me learn a few more technical lessons. Still Google’s intentions are not clear to me; yet its actions in the blog business (as well as in search) have left me somewhat disappointed. As an investor, I wonder what percentage of Google’s constituents are unhappy like me.

First, host your own blog if at all possible. This will give you the most flexibility and control over management and appearance of your content. I started on Blogger but quickly hit the limits of what I could do with it (without mentioning the constantly changing bug landscape). Unlimited space, management, and security were not enough to offset its limitations. I then tried WordPress.com and found that also had various limits (mostly imposed to make money and for their ease of administration). I finally decided to let 1and1 host legacy daily using the free software from WordPress.org. This has been working out very well so far. I have ultimate control over everything in the site and can take advantage of open source advancements that may not be stable enough for a Blogger or a WordPress.com to uptake.

Second, understand how the world sees your site. I didn’t fully appreciate this until I moved from Blogger to self-hosted WordPress. Blogger has its unique permalinks, feed links, search links and many other types of links for every blog. The site as seen from outside has a number of URLs that people can bookmark, share, copy into a Word document, send to a friend in an e-mail, print, etc. Once the site is moved, unless all of these links are maintained, existing users will see error pages. One would expect that migration of posts and comments would be the hard part of migration but that was actually the easiest. The hard part was making all of the old links work in the new environment. This is really important because of Google (the wolf).

We are used to Google returning the blue links to our queries within split seconds, but Google is slower than moss growing in the cracks of our outside steps at updating its index. In my case it has been taking months. I understand…  legacy daily was not high on their priority list (literally). People Google-ing (the verb… amazing) would hit the old Blogger links and find a page that had been deleted or moved until I solved the issue. Once Google or any other engine (or visitor) indexes a link, you should not change the link or you should provide a redirection path to forward your visitors. In the case of self-hosted WordPress, a great plugin called Redirection came to my rescue.

I sometimes hear that the Internet is very fast. When it comes to cleanup, the Internet seems VERY slow. This is probably the technical manifestation of the  human behavior of collecting more and purging less. I wonder if letting Google bots find 404 errors would make them clean-up their index faster (that’s research material for another day).

Third, capture your own foot traffic. Web sites are no different than typical boutique stores. If nobody comes in, chances are not much gets “sold.” This is why some stores have very cool AC on a hot day, or post a sign “Spanish Spoken Here”, or send us coupons for 10% off. They want to attract more traffic. What you buy is a different issue. Similarly, web sites want to attract visitors. What those visitors do upon arrival is another topic. In case of Blogger or WordPress.com, they are using your content as the 10% off coupon. Once the visitor is on the site, monetizing the traffic is another problem altogether. Blogger and other hosting sites seem to have a single purpose. That is to capture as much “foot traffic” as possible (like a shopping mall does for boutiques). What is done with that traffic can be determined some other day but for now they want to get your clicks and your articles. We all know this but the part that bothered me a lot was that on the surface they gave me ability to use my own domain name but seemed to be concerned with getting the traffic on their servers at a lower level. If that’s all they can get, that’s better than nothing (in my current setup they get no traffic).

Fourth, do not use FeedBurner (acquired by Google) if self-hosting your blog. The disappointment here was the main reason for having the urge to share thoughts on this topic. Aside from having buggy feed flares, almost non-existent support, and many limitations, this service is by far the biggest wolf in my blogging experience. Every blog has the site (http://legacydaily.com) and the feed(s) (http://legacydaily.com/feed/). Feeds allow people to subscribe to posts using various feed readers that can show the latest information only. This way, for example, people can check the latest fifty articles from fifty different blogs without having to visit all fifty sites. FeedBurner’s value proposition is to provide a single address for your feeds where any feed reader will find compatible content, easy e-mail subscriptions, various enhancements to the feeds, insertion of advertising into feeds, and many other changes from the vanilla feed that a blog software provides. Also, if all users point to the FeedBurner feed, you can get statistics on the number of subscribers, site visitors, etc. Again, the main intention is to force as much “foot traffic” through their servers as possible. I was hoping that Google would fix the issues with FeedBurner. I don’t mind them receiving the foot traffic as long as I maintain control and ultimately have a choice over my visitors’ experiences. But instead they forced me to migrate to a new Google feed through feedproxy.google.com. I expected that the feed address (using MyBrand service) would remain the same but after working on it for hours, I found no easy way to get the new Google feed to show my own site name to people who would, for example, want to subscribe to my feed. I have had enough! No more FeedBurner! The old legacy daily feed at http://feeds.legacydaily.com/legacydaily has been removed. The new feed is at http://legacydaily.com/feed/ (if you have subscribed to the former, please update your links to point to the latter). Also, e-mail subscriptions previously maintained by FeedBurner are now maintained by the site.

In sum, I understand and want Google to make money but if enough people like myself become disenchanted with their tactics, perhaps it becomes harder for them to capture the traffic and therefore to sell advertising based on that traffic. Their basic business model may stop working.

TOOBS for stock by ~Mydin

I was thinking during my commute how quick the integration of new discoveries is these days. Perhaps it’s another side effect of easy information that new products, new inventions, new processes and new methods are analyzed, internalized, and digested so fast. Take the iPhone, for example. It has been around for a couple years, yet there are thousands of little programs for it already. I am sure that in another year or two, it will be added to the list of ancient technologies such as floppy disk, MS-DOS, short-wave radio, light bulb, screws, wheels, etc. To be sure, most technologies are still in use today but they have been internalized by us to the point where we rarely consider the human efforts, sacrifices, and trials that went into their initial births.

Three thoughts come to mind. First, never give up. It may take years to develop a system, a product, or to study a new force, new genetic mutation, new cancer cell, or write a great book. It may take a lifetime. People may argue, disagree, dismiss your work. They may misunderstand, misrepresent, take credit, discredit what you do. But from my history lessons, nothing major and meaningful was ever born overnight. One thought leads to another, one work makes it feasible to create another. That’s the process of development. What we see in the rear view mirror is the mature internalized, accepted, perfected result of many lifetimes of hard work.

Second, we all have some talents. My father says that great people are born with these special talents. He says although we can go to schools to learn how to write like ՎԱՀԱՆ ՏԵՐՅԱՆ, very few will be gifted with that special fragrance that he breathed into his poetry. Sure, but I also believe we each have our own unique gifts. It is a matter of early discovery and a lifetime of hard work. Again, in hindsight all we see are the jewels left behind by the greats. We do not always see all of the trials, failed attempts, discouragement, disagreements, and the hard work they endured. A classmate from elementary school writes beautiful poetry almost daily (who would have ever expected) but also lives a routine that would seem impossible to most. With God’s gift, and lots of hard work, I can envision a book in the horizon. I am sure it will be anything but easy.

Third, when you make it do not be disappointed when it’s quickly integrated into the civilization or the culture. The new method that was developed after years of hard work may become a standard routine so elementary that is taken for granted and almost forgotten. Sometimes the greatness is not appreciated for a generation or two. Often the impact is profound in many other areas of life not imagined initially. I am thinking of the Internet Protocol, for example.

As for me, I’ll be busy thinking much, learning much, observing much, experiencing much and, of course, expressing much…

out of blur by *S-t-r-a-n-g-e

Call it a coincidence… or divine intervention. Last week during a discussion about the Book of Daniel, I expressed an opinion that I have become skeptical of connections people make between different elements in life and that I prefer to make my own connections. Today, during an NPR program on how Easily Accessible Info Blurs The Line Of Expertise I heard some interesting thoughts about the subject. Then I read On the Internet, Is Everyone an Expert? and realized that I was not alone if NPR was talking about it.

So, before I continue, let me make a disclaimer. Whatever I say are my thoughts. These could be right or they could be wrong, you judge. You make the connections. Based on your experience, education and beliefs, you determine if what I say is worth the electrons that carry it to any corner of this planet. Do not take anything I say as absolute truth, law, certified, or proven. Do not consider me to be an expert (what’s an expert anyway?). Do not rely on what I say as your journey is guaranteed to be different. God knows, I don’t. A wise man (my “cousin” who helped me return to America) one day told me “Listen to everyone, but do what you think is right.”

This may be an extreme interpretation of considering myself as someone “who knows that he doesn’t know.” Experiencing the Internet and the overwhelming avalanche of information from every media outlet daily, I am convinced that most people out there “don’t know” (just like me). Whether they realize that or not is a different story. Couple days ago, someone said on the news the market is down because of XYZ. This is a perfect example of misinformation. There are many markets. The stock market, for example, is made up of thousands of traded securities. Each security has its own market. In its market, there are millions of participants. They trade securities for many reasons…. EVERY SECOND! So, when the millions of decisions of millions of participants affect thousands of securities every second, how can an “expert” say why the market is down?

The dictionary definition of an expert is a person who has special skill or knowledge in some particular field. Notice how this definition requires a judgment – we must determine whether the knowledge or skill is special. In other words, expertise is relative. As we learn more, practice more, experience more, we also tend to become “experts” in our own areas. The playing field has been leveled by the Internet with the availability of vast volumes of information on every topic. Only time is the limit! Because of time being one of the main limiting factors in gaining expertise and because of our own lack of time, I see danger in our tendency to consider people experts in areas wider than their true narrow field of expertise. Therefore, I suggest that it is even more important today than ever before to carefully examine the facts, to find the true authority on a subject, to speak with a number of experts, to study the topic ourselves, to not blindly follow, to ask many questions, and to remain humble.