May 27, 2010

Enterprise 2.0

Andrew McAfee, author of a new book called Enterprise 2.0, spoke at an internal conference today. Very energetic persona, with an interesting pitch. And on a side note, that allowed some of us to grab a signed copy of the book for further study.

The upshot of the pitch was that the same forces that caused the shift of the web from 1.0 to 2.0 are awaiting a shot at transforming corporate information management culture. Historically, the way to think about information management in a company has been built around the structured, hierarchical approaches. Moving to tools and processes of the 2.0 web, includes a culture shift of leaving the controlled process paradigm and instead accept a more free form style, that almost required faith that it will work. Some companies that have already moved to this culture have started reaping benefits. And companies that adopt these technologies and cultural tenets stand to gain a many-fold increase in productivity.

Reading the book is, therefore, next on the agenda.

May 26, 2010

Enter Swingman

Who here likes Enter Sandman?
Me, me, oh me!
Who here thinks swing is foot-tappilicious?
Uhm, me?
Who here thinks Enter Sandman should swing?
???

Enter Sandman- the Swing Version by plamere

Someone over Music Machinery, decided to post a few songs, that had been through a piece of Python code, that produced a swing version of the song by - taking each beat and time-stretching the first half of each beat while time-shrinking the second half. A couple more songs below, but more available here.

Every Breath You Take (swing version) by TeeJay

Sweet Child O' Mine (Swing Version) by plamere

May 24, 2010

How LOST it should have been

Yesterday was the big LOST finale. For me and the wife, it was a major let down. She insisted, she needed some closure after the six years worth of episodes. So, well, here is the alternate end to LOST, the way it should have been. Read more after the break.

May 16, 2010

Googlicious

Seems like a lot is happening with Google. Two noteworthy blog posts in the same day - at least noteworthy for me.

First, the Nexus One phone (which our household owns) will no longer be sold via their online website. I am sure it is a sound decision given their sales problems. But it takes away the one chance for the mobile phone market in the US to finally break free of the carrier choke hold. Funnily, this was timed just days after we picked up the new Car dock accessory for the phone.

Second, looks like Google Street view has been collecting a lot more information than the previously disclosed. Not only were the Google cars collecting the names of SSIDs and MAC addresses, but they had been collecting fragments of actual payload (data transmitted unencrypted through the network).

So that is one apology and one surrender. Not bad for day's work.

Updated: Link to google.com/phone no longer is live, updated to static Nexus One page.

May 15, 2010

Achieving schooldom

Spent the day yesterday at the Academy of Accelerated Learning school, as part of the Junior Achievement program in our city. We spent the day with kids in the third grade, taking them through a course about Our City, talking through aspects of entrepreneurship, financial literacy and work readiness.

Junior Achievement has a unique way of presenting people from the workforce to students still in school. They allow volunteers to deliver curriculum in the schools while sharing their experiences with the students. Makes me want to do the same with my alma mater.

This being our first adventure of this kind, I had two key takeaways - first, teaching a class is fun, but is not easy. In between emails, meetings and deliverables I may be stretched in my day job, but that is not as emotionally sapping as having 30 pairs of eyes on you alternating between unforgiving scrutiny and inattentive boredom. Second schools of my time in India are very different and very similar at the same time to the schools in the US. While the rules, techniques and rooms are vastly different, the kids in the schools are the same the world over.

On a related note, here is a pertinent TED article that talks about creativity in our schools and the importance of creativity for the future of mankind. Check it out after the break.

Crowd sourced chill

Chillout is a song by zefrank, that has a fun story of crowd sourcing associated with it. Not to mention a catchy stick-in-your-head kind of tune.

<a href="http://zefrank.bandcamp.com/track/chillout">chillout by zefrank</a>

May 13, 2010

How cell phones work

Everyone has a cell phone now. Dialing a number and having someone answer seems so ordinary, it is almost considered routine. But, a lot needs to happen behind the scenes for that call to get through. After the break, a graphic explaining how this works in more detail.

Removed embedded image after email request from linkremoval@cellphones.org. To the team from cellphones.org, if you really did not want me to link to your image, maybe you should have not included a “use this code to embed into your site” option on the site. Thanks!