December 31, 2008 at 12:15 pm
· Filed under Rhythmeering
Look in the mirror: G.M. is us. That’s why we don’t just need a bailout. We need a reboot. We need a build out. We need a buildup. We need a national makeover. That is why the next few months are among the most important in U.S. history. Because of the financial crisis, Barack Obama has the bipartisan support to spend $1 trillion in stimulus. But we must make certain that every bailout dollar, which we’re borrowing from our kids’ future, is spent wisely.
It has to go into training teachers, educating scientists and engineers, paying for research and building the most productivity-enhancing infrastructure — without building white elephants.
This idea of rebooting can be helpful – as long as it includes major system upgrades such as the ones John Robb recommends. Friedman doesn’t really offer an upgrade and if one reboots with the same software, the problems will keep coming back. That such a large percentage of the society has accepted constant rebooting is part of the problem. Perhaps a friend has shared their PC to Mac experience or you’ve seen the commercial
While Robb and Friedman disagree on the how, they both want to minimize the role of government. This is another notion that sounds good until you look under the hood. As Dan Shafer points out – it’s a job for government not robber barrons. More significantly, minimizing for the sake of ideology or out of fear isn’t productive. What we need to do is fine-tune the role of government, to make sure it is a harmonious participant contributing to the achievement of our goals.
What roles should the government be playing? Infrastructure is on everyone’s list but most are vague about what purpose new infrastructure should serve or are talking about replacing(not upgrading) the old. At the beginning of this year in posts on the future of manufacturing(here and on The Rhythmeering Journal) I said:
When Manufacturing 3.0 arrives on the wings of robotics and nanotechnology, man-made items will be works of art and hobby – there won’t be many of today’s manufacturing jobs here or overseas.
… The next time the subject of manufacturing jobs comes up, ask people what those jobs will be like just 10 short years from now.We can’t wait until then to start dealing with the realities of Manufacturing 3.0.
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The government needs to start informing the people and preparing for this future now.
Here’s to 2009 – the year of change. Happy New Year and thanks for stopping by!
World View provides a location-oriented view of a software development project. It is built on Google Maps, and allows project managers and developers to see the inter-team relationships in a global project. A particular focus, again, is on visualizing conflicts, though future work includes other kinds of dependencies.
The RepRap team is clearly recognizing what might be called a social problem with the development of their device: the fewer the people involved, the slower the progress. Hence the practical solution of molding parts to help seed a community (note the growth in the store’s offerings – Link).
I like what they’re doing. It reminds me of open source software development.
Collaboration is the core of PLM and the heart of how UGS PLM Software does business. To enable collaboration through Global Innovation Networks, UGS PLM Software develops and leverages 3D modeling, visualization, and collaboration technologies. Virtual environments like Second Life are a natural and exciting extension of these technologies. Through Siemens Innovation Connection, our customers and our partners are experimenting with these new collaboration and visualization technologies. We are working together to explore how these technologies can be utilized to improve business processes and innovation. Siemens Innovation Connection also provides an exciting way to share some of our customer’s innovative products.Siemens Innovation Connection in Second Life
Would you change your belief based on a simulation?
because Participating In The Big Simulation will inevitably challenge deeply held beliefs. Such beliefs, whether theologically rooted or not often make it difficult for people(strictly biological or not) to respectfully disagree. Thus, by challenging deeply held beliefs, simulations potentially exacerbate the problem. At the same time, simulations may hold the key to respectfully resolving conflicting beliefs(violence is disrespect in the extreme). However, given the scientific underpinnings of simulations, we’ll have to first find a way to get along respectfully with believers in Scientism – the biggest religion most people never heard of.
Forbes columnist Elizabeth Corcoran tying together Kay’s early work and the current trends in chip production, puts this into a market context:
Are you old enough to remember the heyday of Xerox PARC, when it was an incubator for astonishing ideas? The guiding design philosophy of those days, as I recall, was simple: Do away with a constraint. Pretend that a key–but expensive–component has become free. Pretend bandwidth is free. Pretend silicon is free.
Silicon chips are almost free. The limitation now is software. Jobs, Hawkins and for that matter, companies like Intel, must all be scrambling to figure out how to inspire software designers to write applications that will make their devices sing.
Prepare to see scores and scores of devices. That much is clear. The billion dollar question in the balance is one of evolution: Which one–or ones–will dominate?
In Viral vs Exponential Growth and the Meshverse Paradigm I made a similar case that this same evolution she speaks of is happening very quickly and will have a very large impact. I explore how this shift came to pass in The Roots of Hardware. Speaking of shifts and roots, the subtle shift you may have noticed here at the MJ, are going to get more pronounced in the coming weeks as the next generation of software and networks I’ve been evolving begin to surface.
iphone