Designing better futures

information is life: healthcare 2.0

I have a fraternity brother who is slowly losing his children to a rare neurodegenerative disease called Battens syndrome.  He and his wife are watching their 5 year old son fade before there eyes.  One of their twin daughters will go through the same process.  They are doing everything they can. 

If you know someone in such a situation here is a video explaining an amazing example of open source software for collaboration to discover better therapies and solutions.  This is insight into open medicine that lets everyone help is a fascinating example of well thought out design, information sharing and participation that may improve many lives.

 Imagine what will happen in the very near future when geneology sites with millions of people's profiles (see here) potentially start allowing the uploading and cross posting of raw DNA data while other build tools to study phenotypic expressions of genetic potentials.

The technology is here now and the cost points and pieces are all falling into place.  Open genomic posting and analysis in 3-5 years (800-1,200 days) will be an incredibly impactful business.

Gene impact beats i-pad in the long run

Shocker folks, the i-pad will grow in popularity, but won't change cultural institutions, values or belief systems much.

Gene testing and diagnostics will change cultural institutions, values and belief systems.  These are some old gene chips to the left.  I used to help run a project that played around with these. 

A firm called Counsyl is releasing a new chip that tests for 100 genetic related dis-orders.  This $700-800 chip will allow couples to determine the likelihood of a common or rare dis-order being passed down.

Counsyl isn't really that big a piece of news for those in the know.  There are probably hundreds if not thousands of the 23,000 listed syndromes that will show a genetic pre-cursor and or later deterministic environmental factor. 

The cost performance curve of sequencing which shames moore's law, means that a multi-hundred million dollar sequencing project in 2002 is now about $4,000. Nature Article: The changing economics of DNA synthesis.

You, your spouse, kids etc. will most likely be able to be sequenced for less than a $1,000 in 2-3 years.  If you want to understand how fast this world is looming, check out the  Carlson curves on the right hand side of Rob Carlsons page, they are the Moore's law of genetics.  There will be an ecosystem of multi-billion dollar service providers in this space in 5-7 years.

I bet that in 10 years sequencing of the flora in the gut will be as common as in-vivo protein analysis.  Trivia point: for every one "human cell" in your body there are 10 bacteria, they are just significantly smaller.  We are all walking and talking microbial ecosystems.

Counsyl has put 100 diagnostic tests on a chip.  In a few months, quarters etc. you will most likely see firms put thousands of tests on a chip while the price point stays about the same.  The information flood will be huge, the social impact even larger.

The true impact of any technology is the deeper philosophical situations that are opened up.  Rapid transport, steamships, trains, jets all shrank the world and made us all more neighborly or warly.  The internet mixed up our ideas and concepts of culture and boundaries, etc.

Genes let us ask: who am I? where did I come from? How long will I be here and what will my offspring be like.  The answers will be crude and very fuzzy ripe for mis-interpretation and mischief.  Genetics is accurate, phenotypic outcomes are fuzzy as they depend on lots of variables.

Quiztime involving the simple 100 test from Counsyl:

1. When should a couple take a genetic test, before/after marriage, dating, never etc.?
2. If you don't take the test and something occurs with your child, would you still feel OK about your choice?
3. What are the social implications for access to the test.  Should it be made available to everyone?
4. At what age should someone be aware of their genetic risk or opportunity profile (adulthood), sexual maturity?
5. If you take the test, does you have an obligation to share information with siblings who don't take the test but may be considering having a child and at risk?

The genee (sic) is coming out of the bottle folks and is faster than you can imagine.  Forget hacking your i-pad to support flash, and think about hacking your genes.  more on genes here just scroll down.

Has the US hit peak Tweet?

Oh no.  Peak tweet may have been hit in July in the US.  Data here.

For those of you trying to figure out what the hell twitter is, have a look here at some quick powerpoint summaries.

My own analysis of the social driver behind twitter is here. The video is very funny.

Maps, Haiti and development via digital tools

I am thinking & working slowly on the concept of facilitating the registration of property via open source tools.

The idea is property law wiki.

Making Property Law Wiki Real

View more presentations from ngogerty.

  It is estimated by Hernando de Soto that there is $9.3 Trillion worth of dead capital in the world. World bank video here These are resources such as real estate that can't be fully used or valued because they are un registered.  The reasons for this are myriad as will be the solutions.

The idea is that by freeing capital via registration it can be used more efficiently.  For example if you are a 3rd generation squatter in an urban city in a developing country, you can't officially sell your house.  Any value you capture will be at a severe discount.  You can't borrow against your home or officially hand it to your family members.  If you want to learn more about the opportunity of unleashing resources that already exist in a country check this video out or look around on the site at this link.

Google maps is a tool that allows for people to collectively identify and place resources and assets into the public domain. 

Haiti for example is in crisis and the available resources are fluid.  A dynamic updatable map represents a significant strategic and tactical tool to deploy resources.  If you want to learn more about Google maps or have experience on the ground in Haiti and can update the map do so.

From a digital geek perspective, it seems like having various organizations have updatable layers and resource tracking that they could expose to the proper authorities or co-ordinating agencies would be very helpful.  Kind of a 3d wikipedia map.  Then make it a mashup supporting flickr links etc. so that quick snapshots and notations could be made on the ground. 

This all sounds overly high tech, but the tools to do it will get cheaper and easier and are already emerging.  Super ordinate tasks such as disaster relief logistics are perfect for this type of thing.  Architecture for Humanity is doing some things.

The World Bank of whom I am fairly critical has done some really good work with the Doing Business Reports.  It does all the right things in terms of measuring, soft competitive pressure via ranking and public availability of information. I hope they or someone else does the same type of work for property registration and recognition.  It is a huge opportunity.

To sum up good maps and live updated detailed maps in place before disaster can save precious hours and days when a disaster happens.

Full Disclosure: I lived in Haiti for 6 months as a small child.

Get your Wile E. Coyote on with a personal jet

 I am a bit of a flight geek.  My mom used to teach flying and was rated up to multi-engine class, she also owned and flew a hot air balloon. 

My grandfather started flying gliders when he lived in New Delhi, India and subsequently taught my brother and I how to fly at age 15 in Iowa.

I have flown in micro-lights and even learned how to fly paragliders off the cost of England on the Isle of Wight.

So here is the mid-life crisis toy that seem like it needs to be checked out.  The home-built micro jet, it even sounds like something Wile E. Coyote would own.  The full article is at Wired Magazine.

Twitter is glance

Twitter?  Here is a video articulating in a funny way that Twitter has not only jumped the shark, but jumped the Fail Whale as well.  

I would pose a counter argument to the Twitter fail whale, but first one has to understand what twitter is and what it does. 

Twitter is the technical expression of the physical concept of glance.  Glance is how humans relate at the most superficial level.  We glance to see the emotional, physical and engaged state of those physically around us. 

An interesting socio-biological hypothesis highlighted in The third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond author of Guns Germs and Steel, is that the very size of the whites of the eye or sclera evolved functionally so that we could monitor each others directed glance.  Consider the change in your behavior when you can't see where people are looking?  When you wish to engender trust you take off your sunglasses, unless of course you are in LA or going through a self conscious hipster phase.

Glance is our first level of social interaction, our outermost degree of connectedness and intimacy. 

Social gaze allows us to monitor and feel connected with others.  Being in a bar isn't about drinking, it is about capturing a furtive glance or flirt that may escalate into something else.  Glance is about feeling engaged, accepted and connected at the most elementary level.

Twitter allows that.  Twitter is currently the easiest tool for sending or receiving social glance publicly.  The desire to be aware of others or to make others aware of us is innate.  Twitter or any medium which facilitates public/private glance will be popular, one can argue the oldest and shortest twit is the emoticon, the digital facial glance proxy.

Logo's and brands are physical glance tools that allow us to signal at a glance our values or those values we purport to telegraph.  Whether it be a sports team, individual athlete, style, wealth, power, sense of humour, ascribed social position etc.  We first and foremost communicate physically using our clothes, logos etc. combined with an awareness of giving and receiving glance among shared symbols.  Branding is the use of money to cultivate shared social values for a set of glanceable(sic) objects or relatable (sic) experiences.  Consider how Disney does this at physical park level, shared memory via narrative and finally logo/ icon level.

Twitter facilitates Social Glance creating a slightly closer social space.  It is as useful or as banal as those with whom you choose to exchange glances.

Glance is innate, intimate and superficial at the same time.  The desire to glance or be glanced is not going away, it will manifest itself in different ways technically.  Blogs, Twitter, Mood messages etc. are all digital manifestations of glance, expect to see more of them. 

A tough to get a hold of book on how and why we react to various media is The Media equation.  Don't let the unusual cover put you off, it is a fascinating distillation of social science research into how we react to media of all types physical and digital.  The book is worthy of consideration by anyone involved in media, interaction or design.

Potential Energy revolution

I used to be Chief Analyst for Starlab an Advanced research lab modeled on the MIT media lab in Europe.  I have also spent 2 years researching renewable energy investments for hedge funds etc. 

The major issues of energy are storage density, distribution, availability and cost.  My own personal storage bias for the future is ultra-capacitors.  The energy technology shown below is remarkable in terms of cost, storage potential and the ability to remake the world.  

If the technology is stable and distributed it will change the power industry globally and most likely in non-grid dense countries first, where adoption of feasible storage means off grid power from an intermittent source becomes viable.  If you sell power why compete with existing infrastructure that delivers @ $.10/KwHr when you can find small off grid villages willing and happy to pay $0.40.

Here is perhaps the most interesting video on energy I have seen in the last 5 years.  If you are interested at all about energy it is worth the 20 minutes.  Here is the company  Sun Catalytix that has been formed to commercialize the technology from Dan Nocera.

Warning this is subtle and the impact won't register with most. ht Paul Kedrosky.

Your world Interface anywhere: The Video

This may seem passe to say, but the rate of change and how you interact with the world is going to change faster than ever.  I am not talking about e-books (next years commodity) killing newspapers etc. or anything that banal.  (don't worry journalism will survive).

The world is going to get more fragmented.  Did you know that your view of the web via google is now different from everyone elses?

Soon your world will not be the same as anyone elses.  I hope this sense of disintegrated reality and individual control doesn't create more selfish people. 

We already control the ambient noise and music, people we choose to interact with/ignore around us etc.  If you work in media you need to be aware of this, partial attention is the pre-cursor to augemented reality.  The hardware for all of this is out there and this stuff is going to be everywhere. 

In the future, people will probably take info: vacations where the seek authenticity and no digital input.  If you feel you are on a digital leash/ addiction with a blackberry, you haven't seen anything yet. 

PS. Apple, microsoft and RIM don't own the moats or competitive edge to be a part of this.  The future is up for grabs.  Google has the strongest position in my mind as they get "infonomics and anthromation.

Optogenetics is amazing

 
Wow!  I jsut finished this article on optogenetics in wired.  Basically it involves targeted neuron therapies involving the typical stuff of gene therapy with an amazing optical twist.

1. isolated gene for expressing protein (in this case light sensitive from algae)

2. A benign viral vector for transduction or other method for transfection (ie. slipping the gene into host cells so it can function delivery)

3. Using light to activate de-activate the protein function (that is pretty wild).

By now luceiferase and other photodetectable biomarkers are pretty common.  I used to read a bio-photonics journal for fun on the subway in New York.

Instead of biomarkers the researches in the article above are using light to induce function both for activation and de-activation of the desired protein state and they are doing it in mammalian brains.  It is huge stuff and an incredible case of lateral thinking.  The article link above does the technology great justice for the layperson and almost  warrants (for me at least) re-subscribing to wired.  Wired has sadly become a rather tired mouthpiece touting the latest MSM offerings pop-tart culture and gadget Version X.0 fanboy gunk.

The interesting things is that instead of typical gene activation, de-activation functional regimes such as SiRNA and related block-out, knock out schemes this one can be activated with remote stimuli and toggled on and off at rapid rate.  How cool is that?

Now ideally the desired behaviour is induced relative to functioning normal bio-feedback loop, but when those fail and the causal chain isn't fully understood this looks like a great shortcut.  Flip a light inside the organism and the proper function is expressed.  Imagine turning on and off a neuro-transmitter related illness like a light switch.

The only cause for pause in my mind is that many bio-feedback loops have dampeners, gain functions and inhibitors for good functional reasons.  The risk is that without understanding the reason for a failed or over-stimulated loop such as parkinsons etc. is the solution/therapy may lead to downstream physical bio-chemical issues or cascading factors as people will use the "desired physical" output potential to achieve a bio-process detriment due to the lack of dampening feedback. 

A way to think of this is the learning function of pain.  In the organism we experience the neural feedback of "pain" in response to physical stimuli that harm us or induce a change in state that means we should limit the current activity or risk physical harm to the organism.

Regardless of the current risks, the world of optogenetics is opening some amazing ways to control neuronal processes as well as monitor them in real time and at localized scale.  Other optical and non-optical bio-markers mean that true functional biological models and therapies are getting closer, this is a good thing. ...and the singularity inches forward another notch.

Taking things for Granted

I have often referred to a type of financial risk as "oxygen" risk.  Oxygen risk is anything so common and familiar that it is taken for granted.  In that vein I offer something to watch that is both interesting and important, a video about clean water technology.  Most of the readers of this blog will take little interest in this, but it is my show here :)

Finance and risk are interesting and important but for me what is most interesting are things related to potentially significant changes in the human condition.  Property rights, iodized salt, sustainable energy, access to toilets, micro-nutrients and civil open society in the Popperian concept aren't considered sexy because they are the "oxygen" for most of the readers of this blog.  For me they are endlessly fascinating. Understanding how they can become more accessible to developing countries and more importantly adapted by their cultures is a point of endless fascination for me.  I am looking forward to reading my copy of a book on Human Waste, ick but it is important to the condition of life for billions of us.

So here is an interesting video on a new water filtration technology.  It is no panacea, just another technology, but most changes and successful systems consist of many little things.  This may be one of them for some people.

Apparent Trojan horse in the Bloomberg directory could be an AVG false positive.

I use Bloomberg  on my laptop to round out my algorithmic trading research. 

My copy of AVG Antivirus just popped a window saying I have the Tiny F. Trojan Horse inside the Bloomberg Directory.

Toby (seen in the comments below) indicates he has contacted Bloomberg and the error is with AVG.  It seems AVG issues a False positive.  So this is most likely not a virus in the Bloomberg system.

Hat tip: Toby

Deep play: Math, coral & crochet.

For those of you who get it, you will realize this video is a lot deeper in terms of symbolic meaning, linkage, learning and evolutionary creation of symbolic and applied knowledge.  For the rest, enjoy the pretty coral.

Margaret Wertheim leads a project to re-create the creatures of the coral reefs using a crochet technique invented by a mathematician -- celebrating the amazements of the reef, and deep-diving into the hyperbolic geometry underlying coral creation.   

I would be interested in hearing comments about this as most of the really deep math people I know will understand immediately why "play" is important.  pushing symbols about isn't interesting, but synthesizing new relationships or constructs within a bounded environment is very cool. 

For the fairly limited maths used in "advanced" finance and risk, just curious what kind of "wooly" form would pop out of a good CMBS or CDO model.  My guess is a CDO would look something like a teratoma and be immediately recognized as unstable or unfunctional due to flawed form.

More power = more questions

Everyday we progress exponentially along the knowledge curve implementing improved technology to manifest greater power.  That power comes in the form of energy, information and control as manifested through individual and group behaviors. 

As a former chief analyst for one of Europe's most advanced research labs and an anthropologist I pose this question. 

More power to ever smaller groups can mean more risk to everyone, what should we do at the group social level? 

I don't have answers, but these are profound and looming questions.  Here is a video or War power.  I have posited since 1990 that applied biological technology will pose as many profound challenges as anything we have yet encountered.  Yes this is Bob Merton, he the maker of small fortunes from large one who blew up LTCM.  He has led some of the most expensive lessons in convexity exposure and Gamma risk ever.  Please god, for the sake of the children keep him away from systemically large amounts of leverage :).

The singularity and the real future of computing, post netbook

The future isn't going to be like the past, netbooks are nice and will have a 3 year life of novelty before they become another banal niche in the silecosystem.  Watch this 7 minute video and think about how fast the future is going to be here.  The technology that delivers this is unfolding no matter what happens in the economy.  The video shows what information anywhere really means.  It is a post Jetson's future, the kind that was tough to imagine just 15 years ago.

My guess is devices similar to this will be in the 3rd world in 7 years and in the developed world in 2-3 years.  As former chief analyst for a research institute Modeled on the MIT media lab, I have seen a few things and can assure you this video is a window into the very near future.

If this video doesn't shake you up a little bit, you need more coffee :;

If you want to see where this is all heading, read the singularity is near by Kurzweil.  I don't make book recommendations lightly, as it is the time of your life we are talking about.

The green re-cession...via demand shock.

A lot of people try to guess at true Chinese GDP using Electricity consumption as a proxy.  Here is a little review of estimated US energy usage through since 1930.  I can't vouch for the source Wattzon or data integrity, but it really makes one think about firms in the peak energy management business like Enernoc or grid pressure relief systems.  I wish the graph below were semi-log to more clearly highlight the 1930's decline.

I found the chart in Paul Kedrosky's mention of an energy conference presentation.

Carbon credits, utilities etc. and anyone used to steady state energy consumption growth is probably in for a bit of a shock.  Smart metering, behavioral changes and other end point and grid efficiency gains will only exacerbate this shock for energy producers and their respective supply chains, railroads etc.

Make Interactive Excel Models in under 2 minutes

Making a model that lets people interact with variables via scroll bars is one of the most powerful and underused components in Excel.

If you enjoy making models for people to "walk around" or feel the sensitivity assumptions, this is for you.

A warning about the tutorial below, it pops open another window and autoplays. It is a little loud.

Change happens faster

Change happens regardless of the economy, only the rate gets altered a bit.  There is some hype here so have the salt shaker ready. 

economics, technology, science and the singularity

Juan Enriquez usually gives some of the more intriguing talks at TED.  He jumps from point to point spinning disjointed concepts into amazing narratives.  As a former chief analyst for a "deep future" science research park and anthropologist, this is right up my alley. 

Be warned watching this video will make your head swim with possibilities.  As a hedge fund manager today, I believe imagination is the most important risk management tool.  This video has a lot of implications.

Check out Ray Kurzweils book the Singularity is Near to understand the drivers behind all of this.

Brittle systems: when things fall apart

A tightly coupled supply chain may have many co-products and dependencies that rely on its inherent economies of scope or scale.  Efficiencies gained from scale or stability create dependencies based on positive externalities.  The more stable the underlying source of the dependency, the more dangerous its failing can be.

Did you know that a slow down in automobile manufacturing can impact the delivery of various life saving drugs?  Neither did I.  You can read about it here at the always interesting Blown mortgage blog.

This is a derivative form of risk that can't be modeled as the causal agents and feedback potential are to tough to model.  It is a qualitative NP hard problem if you will.

Black swans are are caused by cascading failures between what are believed extremely non-linked systems.  We usually think of derivatives in the first order.  

An S&P 500 option or future derives its value from the underlying value of the S&P 500 equity values which of course derive their value from the longer term expected prospects of their earnings.  Black swans are caused by 2 or more loosely coupled and viewed as independent events that link up causing extreme outcomes.

Current earnings estimates point to $30 worth of earnings for the S&P 500 which is currently priced at $835.  That equates to a PE ratio of 27.8 or an effective yield of 3.59%.  That yield sounds a little low to me.  The historical average PE ratio implies an S&P fair value at 490.   For those of you who think in Dow points that equates to a 4,400 DJIA.

The free PHaT tool may be helpful when thinking yield and trading ranges over the last 90 years.  For those interested, the low PE during the depression was roughly 5.6 in June 1932.  That equates to  167 for todays S&P 500 and 1,590 on the DJIA based on current earnings estimates.  I am not saying these are my opinions or fair values for the equities markets, merely pointing out that they are within the realm of the historically possible.  As a PM I think 98% of the time about risk.

Flitter=Photosynth+Facebook+Twitter+Animetrics

I was playing around with Matlab thinking about vector clustering algorithms over the weekend. Something out of my depth really.  While thinking about complex data sets and vectors, I remembered PhotoSynth from microsoft.
 Then I thought about facial biometrics which usually use a few bio points to reduce a face to a few key vectors.  Companies like Animetrics do this.

That got me thinking about a social application mash-up.  In the human animal the gaze is important as we are highly socially evolved.  Our eye have small irises relative to the "white" of the eye compared to the Gorilla or Chimpanzee.  One theory behind this adaptation is that it allows us to track the gaze or focal point of others.  Think about how finally tuned we are to gauge trust based on eye tracking, contact etc. 

Social gaze is our desire to watch others behaviours and in times of uncertainty to mimic it.  This occurs not just during the teenage years but throughout life.  Look at any market. Charlie Munger writes about this.

Social gaze is a powerful tool, it is the basis of marketing.  Facebook and Twitter allow for social broadcast & gaze at an information but not physical level with people continuously answering the question, "what are you doing right now?"

One can easily imagine the following applications being developed.  Variants are probably already in use at Darpa etc or being nurtured in silicon valley.

PeopleHistoryWhere: combine Photosynth for creating location tags and vecotors. Then use similar technology for clustering social vectors extracted from the images, overlap the data sets and from a large pile of public photographs, you could probably determine location, time and social network (relationships).  My guess is that the vector clustering could even indicate passage of time using standardized clues to evolve crude social spatial chronology. 

This would make a very interesting form of historical journalism, genealogy from public photos of who with whom, where and when.  The immortal why of history would be up to the historians.  Imagine getting an e-mail from a photograph asking, "what were you thinking at this moment?"  The moment and actors in any space could theoretically be recreated.  Disneyland pictures 2.0.

Given the human animals social instincts and relatively tight clustering behaviour you could probably infer who was holding the camera where, when and most likely during what time of day and day of year if the picture was outdoors and there are enough shadows a latitude could be approximated.  This could be done using photographs of well photographed landmarks from any period.  This would be very interesting for historians.

The Flitter application mentioned in the title needs less technology overhead, simply register your camera phone or account and start-uploading photos.  Each time a photo is updated an approximate time could be guessed at as to when it was taken and where assuming it was outdoors or indoors near a well photographed (tagged or untagged) landmark. 

Most photos of people are taken next to physical or social landmarks.  A social landmark is a birthday party filled with people for example.  given the small quick nearest neighbors set that a social network allows, it wouldn't be to tough to identify and tag the photo participants automatically.  The software could even prompt the user for confirmation.

Upon uploading to your flitter account, the photo is automatically indexed and placed in either a physical or social context.  This would most likely be a popular social gaze application building on top of existing social software and allowing for interesting auto-tagging. 

Like all technologies, it is ethically agnostic.  It is more a matter of when rather than if this happens in the public sphere.  This technology will of course manifest itself through our cultural filters of greed, lust, fear etc.  Lets hope it provides a better understanding and appreciation of our relationships with each other rather than stalking and finger pointing.

An interesting take on the poor, urbanization, mobile phones and a crisis

Bruce Sterling is an interesting thinker and writer.  He has a great understanding of the social dynamics of technology.  If you are interested in technology, society or global politics, you may find this lecture of the eventual collapse of North Korea and its implications interesting.

Crisis in crisis, 100 year storms and truly great depressions

Aside from the tiresome determination of what "inning" the credit crunch is in and how strong the "headwinds" are lets take a look at the Crisis of crisis.  What does that mean?

Well every media outlet needs a crisis to grab your attention in order to sell it.   

Crisis Definition:

1 a: the turning point for better or worse in an acute disease or fever b: a paroxysmal attack of pain, distress, or disordered function c: an emotionally significant event or radical change of status in a person's life <a midlife crisis>

2: the decisive moment (as in a literary plot)

3 a: an unstable or crucial time or state of affairs in which a decisive change is impending; especially : one with the distinct possibility of a highly undesirable outcome <a financial crisis> b: a situation that has reached a critical phase <the environmental crisis>

The media will hopefully burn through the "crisis" metaphor in a few months and like some burned out sports hack seek ever more bombastic metaphors and modifiers.  Look out for exploding banks, melting markets and ballistic prices. 

Interestingly we can expect to see more crisis because we can see further and care more now about the world. 

Imagine that some event  warrants the word crisis due to the fact it was a one in a 100 year event.  Our current media and shrinking world mean that instead of a looking at a local phenomenon and seeing a crisis once every 100 years, we can now look and pay attention to 100 different phenomenon.  Now that we can "see" farther and monitor more things, we are more likely to see more crisis.  The crisis of crisis is upon us.  To understand why economic crisis are far more common than the "that is so 6 minutes ago old news" media, I would recommend spending a considered period of time with a book on the matter, such as something from Kindelberger.

For those ranters and ravers who have a limited scope and equate everything bleak with the great depression, please do your homework.  It was mainly a deflationary environment which saw over a 25% contraction in GDP and reported unemployment of over 25% with an estimated shrinking of the money supply of an estimated 30%.  I am not advocating for or against this view of the future, but rather asking for a more considered use of the "like the great depression." catch phrase.

An anthropological perspective on Youtube

Anthropology is a very interesting way of attempting to separate oneself from cultural biases and understand the behaviour of the human animal.  My anthropology background has been incredibly rewarding and I would recommend the major to anyone wanting to learn more about the people around them.
Anthropology is broken into 4 major sub fields: social, linguistic, physical and social.  I am most interested in socio economic anthropology ans sustainable development in cultures.

Have a look, it is pretty interesting to see new media the space it creates for culture.

125 inch TV that weighs 9 pounds, biggest, lightest TV

You may want to hold off on spending that stimulus check on the 40 inch TV.  This is just around the corner. Learn more at Pink Tentacle

Laser TV is right around the corner as well.  3 Times the color depth and disturbingly real effects. 

and of course there is the hologram presentation using telepresence. The gap between living room and holodeck get more narrow each passing day.

Wave your hands in the air

Our interactions shape our beliefs.  Here is a new way of interacting with things.  Remember when people, used the "drive" metaphor for a computer.  He or she knows how to drive a computer.  If you are under 35, you probably don't.  Touch, and gesture are natural anthropic behaviours. 

Here is a very anthropic, what is commonly called "friendly" or ergonomic way to interact...oh and its cool as well. thanks new launches

interfaces of the future

Thanks Core77. Johnny Cheung Lee is pointing the way to the future of interaction and is a great hacker.  Lets hope the digital hardware designer out there are watching his work here.

a video from 1969 Britain on computers.

An interesting experience, to watch and feel the sense of future in the video below.  The technology is now 6-8 orders of magnitude cheaper and better but hasn't fundamentally changed.  thanks to the personal genome site for digging this up

The next real revolution will happen with either analog environments or a shift from the purely Von Neumann architecture used today.  My guess is something mimicking a highly redundant biological system for solving complex non-discrete problems.

Researchers can read thoughts to decipher what a person is actually seeing

Here is a fascinating article that reinforces the work of Ray Kurzweil and his book, the singularity is near.  Basically the article is about the ability to track via live scanning a single human thought.  It is early days in this field, but the science is rapidly approaching boundaries considered science fiction just a few years ago....and ever faster we go, to we know not where or what.

Wii hack for the holidays

SSSHHH. I am not supposed to know it, but I am getting a Wii for the holidays.  Here is an uber hack for those also fortunate to have the game console.  Turn your wii into a surface tracking tool.

Microsoft steals 3 weeks a year of my Life. No more!

Ouch.  I am dumping microsoft technology as fast I can.  My laptop at home was taking 15-20 minutes to boot up.  I dumped all non-essential programs and ran a bunch of registry cleaning utilities.  In the process my laptop operating system (windows XP) died and I had to restore it.  This means losing everything.  I spent 6-8 hours this weekend performing updates and trying to recall passwords.  I was probably spending 20 minutes a day waiting for XP to boot or un-hibernate.  whatever.  That works out to bogus Microsoft products stealing 120 hours a year or (3 weeks) from me.

I am now using Staroffice (free replacement for office), Thunderbird for e-mail (an outlook replacement) and a few services from Google for calandering and RSS reading..  I will hopefully never have to purchase or recommend another microsoft product.  I am looking into UBUNTU as my next operating system of choice for my non-mac work. 

Bye microsoft it was a nice 14 years we had together but I feel I need to grow.  Hey its not you, its me ;)...oh and I want my life back.

about vista.......

That steaming pile known as vista is now allowing people to pay for the privilege of downgrading to XP after purchase.  OEM's are nwo also allowed to sell XP for at least 5 more months.

MS office 2007 has a steep learning curve and excel can't do math....MSFT=$20/share in 12 months.  Roughly a loss of $70billion on paper.  The days of the OS being important are fading fast.  In 5 years it won't matter.  Do you have any idea which operating system your, car, ATM,  phone, GPS or MP3 player are running.  Why should you really have to care about your PC.?

Let's sum it up..Vista is the new New Coke.

Comparables valuation tool

Years ago I built a valuation tool for running Comparables.  This was a way of looking at an industry and assessing the comparable valution of other companies.  I am now a value investor, which means the comparable is now the effective T-Bill yield vs intrinsic value as calculated from free cash flow.

This tool took me 30 minutes to build in 2002.  It is free anyone to use here.  The comparables table needs updating, but may be interesting for someone all the same.  Again if you are an investment professional or consultant and this adds value to your life please make a donation to Reporters without borders in the amount you feel worthwhile.  My suggestion is $500.  the download is here Download valuationsheet.xls .

a tool for corporate due diligence

for all of you consultants out there here is a fill in the blank tool, I used to assess start-ups when I was doing some VC screening in London many years ago. 

Basically just fill in the tabs :marketing, sales, management etc. and you get a report and ranking from 1 to 10.  How you use it is up to you?Download due_dilf_ullreport.xls

If you like it and get value from it.  Please assess its value and make a donation rounded to the nearest $500  to reporters without borders  this is donation ware. :)

information shadows the invisible you.

I found some old stuff, while I was cleaning up my soon to be sold Windows XP laptop.  I am going to post it to the ole blog.   Here is a piece, I wrote in London 2001 about your modern shadow.
Invisible you.

The things that count today & tomorrow are invisible. With the exception of immediate family and peers, you can’t see, feel or smell the most important things now or in the future.

These things vary depending on geography and beliefs. But here they are, get ready, the invisible you will show up more often in your life. Invisible you follows you around, visits places you have never been and tells people things you don’t even know about.

Information: 

You have an invisible trail, an invisible tail really, it’s growing every day. You are watched, tracked, tagged and monitored. For good or bad there is a mounting pile of data about you, an invisible outline of your life and actions. 300 images a day if you live in

London

by some estimates.

You can’t touch your invisible tail, don’t know that most of it is out there, but your life depends on it. Your right to fly, drive, get medical care, make a purchase, access certain areas and privileges is all determined by information.

This information is bought, sold, created, stolen, copied and manipulated by people and machines you will never see or know about. The matrix is thin today, but growing exponentially thicker.  Today your tail follows you, tomorrow it may lead. Fear it or revel in it, the invisible tail grows and the digital forest entangles you a little more everyday.

Messages & media:

 

You like Coke! You don’t ask why. Your body and sense of taste don’t actually count in this matter. Your head and the messages do! 

If blindfolded and offered a drink, you, like a majority of people (true fact) prefer Pepsi 60% over Coke 30%. 

Yet if shown the label and logo in a taste test you will (60% chance) prefer coke.   

Who is in charge? You ask for, consume and enjoy Coke because you see messages telling what you like. 

These messages work when you aren’t paying attention. One of Coke’s market reach goals was to have a Coke available within 75 feet of every man woman and child. Bet you have one around now. 

Who is in control you or the messages.  Can you escape coke? Do you want to? It is surrounding you right now. Are you in the Coke matrix, try and get out.

It doesn’t matter. You have seen enough messages to like Coke. The value of this fact and the messages in your head mean Coke has over $40 billion in brand value as a company. There are one billion 8 oz. servings consumed everyday. Think about that. 

The value of Coke is derived from a slice of gray matter in your head that drives your behaviour.  Guinea pig.

The most valuable real estate in the world sits on the necks of 6 billion people. Because most of these heads are poor, the biggest industries are only interested in the rich necks. Wouldn’t you be? Who do you try to influence in your life?

 

Creating invisible worlds of information:

A tree falls in the forest and a CNN cameraman isn’t around to report it. Does it make a sound?

A bomb blows up 10 miles away, no one is hurt and the media doesn’t report it. Did the bomb really blow up? 

You experience fear, anger, excitement, desire and beliefs based on what you see and are presented with. It’s all digits, ink and glowing phospher on screens. You can probably count the real celebrities, crimes, famines and wars you seen on 2 hands. 

These things might not ever come into your reality, yet you still care, why, most likely because you think others will care or interested as well.  

Try reading the websites from a foreign country. www.rediff.com (

India

), www.gulfnews.com (

dubai

). The world looks different there. 

Yet for most people the world presented through a glowing box is reality. 

Without these messages you wouldn’t know that you were in danger, had an opportunity of a lifetime or were supposed to dress in a certain way and eat the right food to live a little longer. 

Messages are cheap and everywhere. You live in the modern world and like most people will see over 2,000 messages advertising messages today.  Who pays for them and how do they affect how you see and act in the world? To busy to think? It becomes invisible, part of the background.  

Visit a 3^rd world country and see how fast things shrink when the messages disappear. You may also notice other things become a lot more vivid and real, the moon at night, the rise and fall of the tides, the people around you.

We are social animals (advanced primates really) and act according to the group. But what if the group doesn’t exist, but is digital.  Ever wonder why people know more about the lives of people on the TV show Friends than their own relatives? 

DNA:

"This above all. To thyne own self be true."
- William Shakespeare

Tarot cards, psychics and mediums are big multi-billion dollar businesses. One psychic telephone hotline in the

US

was worth more than $1 billion. Now, imagine if they were proven scientifically accurate and effective, well DNA is. 

You can’t see it, but it will tell who you really came from. It will tell you, what you are capable doing. Ask DNA nicely and it may even tell you how long you have got to live. 

 You are going to face challenges to be truer to yourself than ever before. Do you tell your wife you could die at 50, or that your children might have red hair and an 20 extra IQ points? Do you tell your boss, the government? 

 You leave a trail of this information every time you sit in a chair, move, drink a class of water or visit a restroom. 

 You can’t stop releasing this information. Soon we will all be able to read it. Nervous? 

 DNA diagnostics will be the biggest challenge to Shakespeare’s quote in the near future. The invisible you will start talking a lot more publicly. Are you ready?

 

Law: 

We behave publicly in a certain way, and in democracies we decide the right and wrong ways of behaviour should be fixed and apply to everyone. This social convention is law. 

Hernando

de Soto

estimates that in the 3rd world there are over $9 trillion in assets that can’t be used due to bad property laws. $9 trillion wasted due to bad group behaviour and invisible legal codes.

The invisible power of law keeps some in power, some in poverty. Learn about it, change it and release the 3^rd world from its own invisible shackles. 

It is not the rich that make the poor, poor, it is rights. You can’t see them, can’t touch, but woe be he or she who loses them. 

Some will die to get them. Some travel to new lands seeking this invisible service. New technology and with it new questions mean that these rights and new ones will become more important. Who decides your future, your children’s?

Invisible you is more important than regular you.

These invisible things act in the realm of what is known as collective culture. Our overlapping group identities and beliefs determine how and when we participate with the invisible you. 

So, who are you? Who is the invisible you and what is the invisible future going to offer you? Can you stop it? Do you want to?

cult of Mac: it just works.

The image to the left is the original Apple Computer Logo.  It is Newton under a tree at the magic moment.
I have just started a new role with a money management firm in New York. I get to analyze and select public firms to invest in.  As part of the job, I had to choose a new computer.  I chose an Apple Power mac.  This might sound silly to the PC people out there, but was a considered choice.  The first computer I ever wrote a program for was an Apple IIE when I was 9 years old back in Iowa at the public schools "computer camp".  It was great.  The first company I bought shares in was Apple in 1983 at the age of 10.  The first balance sheet I ever reviewed was from them.  At age 20 in 1990 I co-founded a mac only software firm in Iowa with friends.  I left the Macintosh fold in 1993.  I am now back.  The experience was bizarre, the mac allows for freedom's and choices in action and fluidity that are different from the PC.  I was frankly a fish out of water, for the first day.  I now realize, the clunky cage of my Windows experience had taught me to expect certain things.  I now realize how things can be.  Here is a little list of things that were surprising:

1. I unpacked the box plug in the machine, 1 cord, one Ethernet cable and it just works. NO crapware from affiliates etc.
2. A printer in the office that required a 550MB driver on windows was automatically identified and just worked.
3. I downloaded skype and the built in camera and speakers automatically tone down my music when a call comes in.  The image and voice from Sweden were crystal clear.
4. My PDF files open instantly and just work.
5. I installed open office albeit with a little hiccup after getting X11 installed.  It just works, I can open powerpoints, spreadsheets etc. no problem.
6. My web based applications, just work.

For $1,500 I got a machine that is faster, smoother, better looking, more versatile and flexible than anything, I have worked with in years.  I may even put Ubuntu Linux on it, if I get time.  I have been busy working so far.
My advice, Vista is the best reason yet to buy a mac.  It just works.

Robot's mimic humans

Ray Kurzweil's book the singularity is all about humans, technology and an amazing future.  Here is a video that shows an all too human robot.  Consider that the high school class of 2020 is entering kindergarten this year.  This video may be a slice of their and our future.

Watch Ray speak about the future here

Thin Film energy storage

Thin film batteries were announced this week based on fascinating technologies.  They energy storage devices are still in the lab, but could open up some interesting futures.  The cost and density still needs to get better for industrial uses, but for commercial electronics, things are looking good.

Most of the issues with energy and renewable energy etc. are due to the fact that it must be consumed on the spot.  For example gasoline in cars has an incredibly high energy density which is easy to capture.  This makes finding energy replacements difficult.  I blogged about energy density and the problems with the "hydrogen" economy earlier. 

Ultimately the best mechanism is storing electrical potential in a fast charging stable environment, i.e. ultra-capacitors.  Thin film batteries aren't there yet, but are interesting.  The dynamics of energy are as much about peak load management, distribution, and energy management as they are about power generation.  Most people get jazzed about sexy new generation techniques of hydrogen, bio fuels etc.  In reality, being able to store, management and transport energy efficiently are just as important, in the emerging world even more so.  I am big believer in energy storage technologies and wind.  The more decentralized energy can become the more interesting the "new energy market will be".  Ideally a cheap carbon based ultra capacitor could be far more interesting and replace those lumps of coal and drops of oil we rely on now for energy storage.  I am not such a big fan of current ethanol as the production costs still aren't really that efficient.  Cellulosic ethanol could be more interesting.

Genes, Toys and genius

Craig Venter the man who really sequenced the human genome attributes his use of Shotgun sequencing which allowed him achieve this feat to his use of Tinker Toys as a child. 

Venter almost flunked High School, but scored in the top 1,000th percent on a military IQ entrance exam. In true scientific tradition the Noble Prize winner Watson, said what he wanted to do couldn't be done.  Venter went ahead and did it.  He proved the NIH  National institute of health wrong.  A classic case of rogue genius overcoming the establishment to make things happen. 
Never underestimate the value of creativity, play and determination to change the world. 
If you want to watch Venter in video check him out being interviewed by Charlie Rose.

invite the virtual world into your home

Virtual world's will become important.  Nintendo which understands that gaming is about fun and not pixels (sorry Sony and MSFT XBOX) is on a rampage.  More people will be inviting Nintendo into their homes to work-out and play.  It will be interesting to see what happens when the Wii links up with social networks and virtual environments in the years to come.  Your Tennis partner may be be in mumbai.  Our experiences and world is getting richer in choice all the time.  Nintendo is a company going places ADRs are here still need to assess the fundamentals:

It is official: Vista blows goats

Chris Pirillo has thrown in the towl  I know my next XP upgrade is going to be a mac.  Vista is by far the best advertising campaign Apple has ever had.  The enterprise won't wake up for 4-5 years and will explore Linux (Ubuntu anyone).  I told my development team the same thing in mid 2006 prior to release when we looked at the beta. 

For those of you invested in MSFT I predict a target of $20 by Q2 of 08,  and calls for Ballmer to be replaced by Ray Ozzie, that will unfortunately go unheeded due to Ballmer's ego and shareholding.

  and please change Steve Ballmer's meds: see Video...