Mr Richards on technology, information, and people

I am in the middle of reading Borges's Collected Fictions (translated by Andrew Hurley) and have already concluded the man was a genius. Most recently, as of a few minutes ago I completed reading Funes, His Memory.

First off, I appreciate the translation note that said in the original Spanish the title was "Funes el memorioso." Yes, there is no exact translation into English for "el memorioso," which basically means "the guy with lots of memory," but to leave it as Funes, His Memory is to almost say the story was about Funes's memory. But it is about Funes and his inability to think.

Funes is "virtually incapable of general, platonic ideas" but has the most amazing memory in the world. He learns the entire Latin language in a week - from a book written in Latin and a dictionary. He proposes a new numbering system based on words - having memorized that 7014 is equal to "railroad." The narrator, in talking to Funes, disagrees and says this is not a system.

Funes and Locke agree that a language with each thing having its own name is disagreeable, but for differing reasons. Whereas Locke thinks the detail too much, Funes thinks it too little. And that's the problem with the ability to recall each and every experience - to never forget - by that same token he can never think.

Borges writes, through his narrator, that: "To think is to ignore (or forget) differences, to generalize, to abstract."

Its a powerful statement and one that should be compared to the cheapening cost of new hard drives and cloud computing storage space. Do you really need 24 days of songs in your iTunes? Do you require photos, every one, to be kept throughout for the next 30 years?

I think all this digital storage is a great thing but at a certain point you have to compromise. Every one experience cataloged, stored, and re-experienced is another new experience that may never have time to happen.

Meanwhile at the current O'Reilly Gov 2.0 Expo in Washington, D.C. ...

Tim Berners-Lee, excuse me, Sir Tim, describes a bag of potato chips and how it represents the future of linked open data on the Web. No, seriously. (I like how this article makes sure to tell you he's talking about UTZ Kettle Classics, rather than make us think of Lays or, Lord help us, SunChips.)

Let's look at this from a Gov 2.0 standpoint - I assume that is his audience given the Expo he's at.

- I'm all for decentralizing information, but at some point, you need a coherent framework or else your communication capabilities goes to zero.

For example, how do you standardize the data sets you want to click through to? Different agencies means different systems and different formats.

- Will there be a common technical platform everyone will work from?
- Will data be interfaced over in batch or real-time? Who is in charge of maintaining the hardware? The software?

These questions need to be asked and addressed in concert with the "visions of the future." Or else nothing happens - or perhaps worse - everything happens but wrong.
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Labels: gov 2.0

Let's get past the outrageous title of this Atlantic article "Did Porn Cause the Oil Spill in the Gulf?" for a moment (although I did stop and read it and so it did serve its alluring purpose), and note the ultimate point the author attempts to make : nepotism is at blame for the oil spill and corporate finance going awry.

A GAO report I read recently regarding a Navy ERP project comes unwittingly, but unsurprisingly, to mind. The GAO recommended in a previous report, in 2005, that the Navy ERP Program office institute a IV&V function as a business best practice and to contribute to its program's success. IV&V being "independent verification and validation" assessment of Navy ERP to Navy and DOD management.

ERP implementations are notoriously difficult, and even more so in the federal space with its unique business practices, controversial replacement of long-lived and dearly loved legacy systems, and the cornucopia of diverse contractor and consulting firms that can lead to managerial cluster#*@! . Independent verification and validation that the new system is implemented right seems the least you might do, right? Currently this IV&V function is met by contractors who report to Navy ERP's release manager. This is kind of like filling out my own performance assessment form - or inspection sheet.

The fact is this is not an "independent" team, and all their findings are questionable. It is interesting to note that the contractors involved in performing the IV&V, also help run the local IT framework and on-site facilities maintenance. Maybe we should hire a truly independent group who all don't live and work on-site, and that actually report to someone other than the program management itself.

**I admit the corollary is not strong in this particular instance, that nepotism is to blame for how the IV&V was hired. But let's use a "broken-window" policy here.

Labels: gov

From an interview with a co-founder of SeeClickFix on O'Reilly Radar, as to how SeeClick earns its money:
"A piece of our revenue model is in sponsorship and advertising. A piece of our revenue model is software as a service, whereby we're selling the customization of our application as well as custom iPhone, Android and Blackberry applications...We also have SeeClickFix Pro, which is a dashboard with user licenses for tracking and acknowledging the issues and backing them up in Excel format."

I'm interested to see where they project most of their revenue coming from in the future. Will it be advertising - the route that most companies have determined will be the (irritating) vision of the future of the Web? Or will it be licenses - the tried and true approach taken by most successful software companies today (i.e. Microsoft, Oracle, SAP)?

Labels: gov 2.0

Movie downloaders to be identified by IP and individually subpoenaed.

Hey Netizens! Getting tired of having to pay for books, music and movies entangled with crappy DRM? Exhausted with the limitations against being able to purchase a song, than restricted to what devices you can move it too? Exasperated with the fact that every media retailer is trying to lock you into some hardware device at the same time they're selling you a song or friggin' book?

Well worry NO MORE! Bit Torrent to the RESCUE.

I know you might saying to yourself - "Hey Bit Torrent sounds cool - all the cool kids do it - but I don't want to be sued. I'm not a mother of three, working two jobs, who will earn the sympathy of the EFF to help pay for my court fees to fight the potential lawsuit."

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It is this simple:
- Sign up now for Downloader's Insurance
- Pay your monthly premium on time
- Tell your friends
- AND KEEP DOWNLOADING!

And if you are one of the randomly selected IP addresses to be found torrenting media that is gripped in the corpse-like grip of the MPAA, and end up getting a subpoena in the mail - NO WORRIES!

Just return the letter and select the option to "Settle." Downloader's Insurance will pay the settlement fee, and you'll return on your way to MORE DOWNLOADING !

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Labels: mpaa torrent

OMB sent out a memo encouraging federal agencies to conduct contests to spur innovation. Think the X-Prize for commercial spaceflight or the 2005 contest for a Space Elevator.

What's interesting - to anyone sufficiently geeky to get excited about procurement authority- is section E. Section E explicitly states that agencies can "conduct a procurement in a contest-like manner to encourage greater innovation and private sector participation, when the payment of a prize is for a good or service for the benefit of the government." This agency would then use existing procurement authority to pay out the prize.

It is a common problem, in my mind, that federal agencies are discouraged from not completely exhausting their budget in a given year. Any budget you don't spend, you lose. It is almost diametrically opposed to what would occur in the private sector - where savings are looked kindly upon and can lead to performance bonuses for the savers.

Agencies end up blowing money on inconsequential items or services, whereas here, you have OMB providing a terrific alternative. How about a year-end contest(s) where all budget saved is turned into contest money? You might even encourage an agency to save procurement authority by running their business more efficiently during the course of the year, so that it can turn around and funnel it into innovation contests at year-end. Win-win!

Labels: budgeting, gov 2.0

Sunlight Labs is offering a $5K prize for better data visualization of complicated government data. A great headline and idea however I think it'll remain just that.

We need to get MORE USEFUL data visualization apps out there. Useful for who, you may ask. Well, how about for our government employees? Or are they being force fed through centralized government agencies that control their information technology needs? How about encouraging the proliferation of new technologies and practices?

Times are changing, and its less about doing IT work OR doing Other Work, than it is doing Other Work with IT TOOLS. Its changing the approach to work - expand your toolset and do your job a little better - and also coming up with better visualization apps.

Sunlight and others should definitely still encourage these contests. Make cool tools, better tools, for people to use. Heck, some of these may even be applicable for a government employee to help do their job. But perhaps we should also investigate whether or not these people are ready to use them.