Tag: Technology

The You

It’s like Who is on First, or the Who.

It’s you who is the Who.

You need to get the bugs out to uncover the better version of yourself.

Everything up to this point is payload: family advices (ill or good-will), the institutions (and college loan) and work places.

Some of us found out the hard way: friends at work are not friends, and friends off work cannot work together.

We cater to popular taste (Aviator sunglasses, and soon Google glasses) or the opposite (I dare you wear those tie-dyed 60’s T-shirts).

I am half way through Fraction of the Whole. The Australian writer charges out of the gate with a daring debut, hilarious and deeply philosophical.

Australian fascination with Ed Nelly. But he raises a great point: how can you stay the YOU, when pressure for conformity (credit card approval within 60 seconds, Macy cards etc…) from all directions mold you into a WE (a number).

I realise a striking parallel: in Vietnam, they ask you to buy a lottery ticket every time you sit down (and be a target). In the US, they ask you to open a credit card account every time you step up to a cash register.

Baby boomers had one thing right: they question the system to which they belong. The minute we turned off our brains, we might as well be dead.

We are where we are today because many men and women before us questioned the status quo (yes, wireless can travel the distance and through walls).

Yes, Voice can be delivered over IP. Yes, video as well.

Yes, yes, yes. Don’t tell me No,no,no.

I don’t want to be the YOU. I am the ME. With strength and weakness, with burden to bear, and blessings to bestow (you too).

Please stay the YOU, the better version of YOU. You will see. When everyone does that, we have a better world, if not more interesting.

Un-Detroiting

While video recording and taking photos (time lapse) of our Electric Vehicle Tech session, I couldn’t help thinking about Detroit.

You see, these students have sat through 10 weeks of theory. Now they have a go at “degutting” the Internal Combustion Engine, to essentially make a “glider” (shell) for Electric components. The intended end-product is an All-Electric Vehicle, with zero emission (Bye Bye Sandy).

It’s not far-fetched or idealistic. Just realistic and achievable, right in front of my eyes.

When there is a will, there is a way.

More than a century of Detroit, of Fordism, and oil addiction.

Now at least someone somewhere is trying to jerk the chain, or even cutting it.  UnDetroiting.

Of course we need to take the economics of this into consideration.

Is it pie in the sky? Does it have a good chance of getting broad-base support?

While the I-pod is reduced to the size of a match box, we still can’t drive a carbon-fiber EV which costs less and leaves less carbon footprint.

Of course, we need recharging infrastructure. Of course, battery companies better not file bankruptcy etc..

I just saw something in the making.

I can’t figure it out.

What it is, ain’t exactly clear.

But with $5.00 per gallon on the West Coast, and Sandy on the East Coast, I think the idea of Electric Vehicle needs a relook.

As long as we get from point A to point B, why does it matter that the “mouse is black or white?”.

Technology changes all the time and is supposed to serve not enslave people.

But we have worshipped at the altar of the neon god we made (Sound of Silence).

No wonder we are subjected to OPEC and MidEast fluctuation  even when only 1/3rd of our supplies are from there. I am glad other energy sources and new-found ways are taking a larger shares of energy wealth. It’s in the head, in the heart and out there in space.

Whatever we need to survive (including being nice to one another) is available. Just a matter of coordinating and negotiating.

For a moment, the sky was the limit. If we hadn’t sent them home at the end of the day, many students would have stayed to finish “un-Detroting” the car. It is to show, when people are convinced and are together, they can achieve great things.

Empathize and Energize

You wish your co-workers are all into that. They know how you feel, and because of who they are, they take it up a notch.

The virtuous cycle. Feeding into it is like fueling the fire. Passion, dedication and yes, winning.

Don’t you miss working in teams with those qualities? Pettiness has no place there. Grumpiness? Out.

Just win.

Know how you feel. I felt the same way. But I found that…. FFF.

One cannot just go out to Costco or Target and get a software package that says “Empathy” or “Energy”.

BTW, the Cosco‘s of the world are expanding, pushing Mom and Pop stores to the outskirts.

Meanwhile, fresh produce and Supermarket chains just can’t justify open more location in inner cities where kids have no choice but fast foods. I know the First Lady got her pulse on this issue (as opposed to Jackie O and Nancy Reagan who just wanted to remodel the White House or consult an astrologer).

Back to Empathy and Energy.

Energy is contagious. At the Olympic, they still do the Wave. You get caught in the spirit of the time and the place.

Just a sea of humanity, cheering and jeering.

You want to be energized? Hang out with high-energy people. The paradox of energy is that it needs to be burned to reproduce (just like the Phoenix rises from the ashes).

Empathy, on the other hand, requires immersion. You step into the other’s person shoes and character. Feel the emotion: sadness, joy, triumph, and disappointment.

Who wouldn’t go through those ups and downs at times.

Companies don’t realize people are people i.e. there are days, they feel elated. Then, other days, they can barely show up. The leader’s job is to be cheerleader, counselor, coach and not police.

Let’s hope your team support each other as you lead them to victory. Nothing is sweeter than to win as a team. Bravo!

Inverted 80/20

Lemonade for Vampires
Lemonade for Vampires (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We make lemonade when life gives us lemon.

Who wouldn’t want to focus on the top money-making time-saving activities!

But …given the constraints we found ourselves in, we should celebrate not Independence Day, but Survival itself.

First, stay alive. Then, stay free.

I hear fireworks cracking. I hear music playing.

But it’s been a while, my inner stereo got turned off.

Hard to jump up and down.

Being an optimistic, I rely not on externalities. Not on other people or circumstances to cheer me up. Telecom has been down for a while, inverted 80/20..

But in the process (of decline), I learned about myself, about my colleagues and about reinvention.

How people react to hard times by reinventing to survive.

I was forced to listen, to watch and to adjust my style.

In short, I no longer am idealistic. Just optimistic.

I still advocate quick action, follow the money, use all your resources etc….

But at the same time, I know there are flipsides, inverted rules, and unintended consequences.

We cannot rid ourselves of one another. We need to bail one another out, to share the same fate .

Inverted 80/20 or not, we are either on the giving end or receiving end.

Just keep in mind that your failed opponent will someday become your ardent advocate, and best customer….if he/she survives to see the day.

Be generous and ready to entertain the though that someday, you will have to make lemonade when it is your turn.

Empty space

Void. Vacuum. Unfilled and unoccupied space.

Plenty of them, within and without.

So we fear its vastness.

We try to fill it up with stuff.

In the process, making ourselves mini-gods.

Co-creators of space-filling. Bed, bath and beyond.

Then give them away to Goodwill to make room for more empty space.

Everyone got problems with fitting everything into a suitcase before each trip.

If you leave me now, you take away the biggest part of me.

That “part of me” is abstract and intangible.

But real nonetheless.

So we have commitment. We honor faithfulness and loyalty. not betrayal.

We extol unseen virtues, unspoken agreement between two people.

That thing called love, duty and honor.

Old school.

But we search for it all our life.

Business world says “screw it”.

Real world says “search for it”.

Which is which?

Lonely at the top.

The dying and fading King.

Kingdom in disarray.

Gates wide open for invaders and looters.

Who is going to stand by you in the hour of need?

Empty space. God-shaped vacuum.

Time flows one way into infinity.

Space is just out there, with Earth older than previously thought.

Space is also inside each of us. All empty.

Until it is filled with joy and laughters. Of children’s nagging and giggling.

It’s not about occupying space.

It’s about validating existing one, granted in each of us. Inalienable if you will.

The right to exist, to breathe, to figure it all out for one’s self.

Business says “screw it, let’s do it” (Branson)

Church says “save it in the name of our Lord“.

Life says “you are to hold on to it, since it is going around only once”.

That empty space, regardless being occupied with Gucci or Goodwill,  is all we’ve got.

Love, hate and fear. All share that same empty and inner space, called Self.

Mars or marble

Have you submitted your name to be shuttled up to Mars?  Space and sea travel or your names on Mars and not marble. This is to show our preference for progress over permanence  – technology over religion.

While it’s good to sit on one of the benches with our parent’s names “in memory of…”, it’s better still for our grandchildren to travel in space to look for ours on Mars.

I found my parent’s graves without a hitch. Right here on spaceship Earth.

In the Far East, people want to travel back to where their ancestors were buried (as of this edit, I have just stepped on a bunch of fake dollars, burnt during an early morning funeral).

Thus, “the Last Train Home” documentary about Chinese factory laborers trying to get home for New Year via train, plane or automobile (their version of White Christmas).

Modernity forces huge displacement. South-South movement will be next, not Earth to Outer space (Indian mobile phone companies are buying up Middle Eastern phone companies to cater to fast growing African markets, while Vietel engineers are rebuilding Haitian and Myanmar telecom infrastructure).

When you are uprooted, your sense of identity suffers. One used to be known by his/her relationship in a communal network. Now, with new “ID“, he/she is known by an employee number. Welcome to KFC, how may I take your order.

With industrialization comes frustration (discontent): who is going to move in those Shanghai towers , and who will have to relocate to make room for the 5th-ring highway?

Uprooted dreamers.

No place to go back to. No bragging rights for aging parents e.g. “my son went to the city and came back a millionaire”.  Bentley in Russia, Ford in China. Wealth shift. G-20+ (make sure Brazil is included, since they know how to party).

For years, we saw a steady rise of “emerging countries”, but we still resort to yesterday’s play book. (Remember the Yugo joke?).

The poor was materially poor, but not in spirit or intelligence. From a near-zero base, the only way for emerging countries to go is to “emerge” i.e. create better-paying jobs, while union and progress in the West , once a blessing, now a hindrance in this post-Recession recovery.

Darwin was right: survival favors the most adaptive. Instead of fighting for a seat on “the Last Train”, those smart entrepreneurs already built alternate-energy bullet trains. It’s not your names on Mars, it’s the challenge to think beyond the marble which for centuries was the last stop for even the most famous of names. A Roman Emperor once hired an assistant, whose main job is to remind him every so often that: “Your Majesty, you will die soon”.  Memento mori.

Rev tone

Public concerns for traffic safety create a new market for rev tones used in electric vehicles.

People fear they cannot hear those noiseless cars approaching. So with multiple “ring tones” currently in the works,

pedestrians might get more than what they were bargaining for: out-of-sync responses to false stimuli (young men get a kick  souping up their Civics with fast-approaching Ferrari sound).

Similar chaos were experienced in the streets of New York before the DoT came up with the Red-Green-Yellow convention.

A friend of mine got hit from behind while walking in Dalat with MP3 on. The motorbike that hit him was

going down hill with engine off (apparently during the months of high fuel prices) with rider  facing down to avoid heavy rain . Hear no evil, see no evil.

With each invention comes a cluster of ancillary products: PBX + voicemail and headsets, wire line phones + answering machines, and now electric vehicles create a need for revving tones.

Just like those Ford automobiles (as long as it’s black!) in the old days, electric vehicles will clutter our nation ‘s highways,and personal “rev tone” will deceive our ability to I.D. them (our audio memory bank hasn’t yet been updated, except for a meager sound effect collection, e.g. electric luggage carts operated inside the airports or the fast beeping of backing-up trucks.) Cars will be manufactured Just-in-time like Dell. And with voltage (or storage capacity) options just like our choices of CPU. Would you like to pick out your rev tone to go with it?  Gas station will be changed to car station, and won’t take up all the precious real estate

(there is no need for a large driveway to accommodate fuel trucks).   Soon, charging stations will be cheap enough like treadmills to be installed in one’s garage. Garages will really be crowded: it gets in-sourced as home gym, hot water tank storage, home office,

garage band studio and vehicle charging station. Apartment and condo managers will be busy assigning

charging spots. So are corporations with assigned “employee of the month” space. Obnoxious salesmen won’t be able to hide their “rev tone” as easily as they did their tattoos.

Best way for rev tone to serve electric vehicle drivers is to give them an option to turn it on or off. That way, a party goer can sneak back into the neighborhood at night, undetected. That would be quite eerie even to the by-then drunk driver himself.

He might all of a sudden hear not just the rev tone, but a prerecorded ” raise your hands up to where I can see them!”. At least, this can prevent a possible screeching sound then complete silence preceded by that awful wham (of an automobile at impact). All is quiet on the western front. That is, until the next rev tone cruises by. In South LA, a drive-by is nothing but quiet.

 

Long tail

2,000 cars (Nano, by Tata) and $20 per gallon of gas?

HP printer and ink model.

Thin client, thick server.

I got it, I got it!

In the same vein, they should subsidize “Blu-ray” disc player, that way, more of us (late adopters) will get onboard quicker.

Mid-summer! Beach time. But not innocence time.

I notice some teenagers stopped by the Barnes and Nobles Woodstock display table.

To these folks, the Flower generation must have the same appeal as the Amish, i.e. the sub cultures America tolerates.

I notice two Op Ed pieces in NYT recently, which speak about “Meaning of Life”  (Richard Cohen) and “NASA 4 lost decades” by Tom Wolf.

The first piece was about an experiment on life prolonging (by curtailing your diet intake), but the other monkey which ate all he could appear to be happier and more vibrant (who wouldn’t show survivor’s guilt when all your party friends already dead, leaving you the dieting nerd as the last man standing). Joie de vivre!

I struggle a little bit when trying to make sense of the Race in Space. I remember the Regan’s Star War shield.

But as far as trying to “conquer” Space, it’s the stuff for Trekkie.

I can barely be a techie (being in technical sales).

However Wolf’s observation makes sense: if the Sun is to be blowing up at some point, at least for the human species to survive, we need to work on some contingencies, however costly and enduring those commitments might involve.

Maybe the premise isn’t strong enough to sustain itself through various administrations, with their own juxtaposing and opposing priorities.

Right now it’s health care (after the environment whose legislation got through last month).

All of the sudden, nobody seem to remember many of us still suffer the economic downturn, as Paulson put it,

“could have been worse”.  The stimulus itself has disbursed about 10+% as of this writing. Maybe it has a long tail too.

Why don’t GM consider using its bail out money to purchase Tata or Chery (Chinese auto company). We can always get it back in the long run with $20 per gallon of gas. HP did it with its printer sitting next to me as I write this.

 

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