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22 years ago today in Maine, my mother was in a very serious accident. A drunk driver, in a stolen car, struck my mother's car. She was pinned in the car, which caught on fire.
After nearly a year of surgeries, and six months in hospitals (including Massachusetts General Hospitals fantastic burn unit) she had re-adjusted her life so she could continue to do what she loved - teach.
My mother is a (retired) special education teacher. After a tremendously challenging, painful, life altering event, she gave 20 years to her elementary school students. Her caring, creativity, and imagination have affected so many lives in the last 22 years.
Congratulations Mom, and Thank You!
Many technologists I respect have reviewed Avatar - admiring the advances in digital movie making, but calling the story cliche, thin, and simply another Pocahontas, Dances with Wolves, etc, etc.
As a technologist, I wouldn't write a review of Avatar if I had read a review that represented my perspective. Goes without saying; movie reviews are easy to find in abundance.
Basically, I believe there are some stories that must be told over and over again until we get it right. More on this after the following disclaimer.
To the critics, I agree with the following general observations about Avatar:
- Some technologies are inconsistently both incredibly advanced and from 2009.
- The blue aliens have alarmingly good teeth.
- References to Iraq, Vietnam etc are obvious (but entertainingly so)
- Great effects, but don't _need_ a major fraction of a billion dollars to tell this story. (Although it is more fun)
Avatar is not the first ground-breaking effects movie.
But for me, Avatar a better story than, say, Jurassic Park. Jurassic Park didn't tackle so many ethical issues, it simply excelled at entertaining. Good for Jurassic park.
Intelligent people rightly take offense to moralizing movies. They already have opinions and education which serves them well enough.
But Avatar is story telling, not education. Another story about Earth, really, and our struggle to act on our comprehension of the obvious:
- The web of life is a real thing that we are part of.
- We are the bad guy. (often with good intentions, but more often because we live in ignorance)
- Diversity in life and culture saves our lives, often.
Discovering new life, new cultures, new places - that story will never get old.
Update:
Cameron's original script for Avatar was called Project 880. The plot and characters are deeper - a lot more context is provided in the script by describing a desperate earth.
With the official announcement that RDF is in Drupal core and the Semantic Web conference in DC, I wanted to take time to respond to "tales of a semantic web skeptic". Healthy criticism, and a good read.
This piece is to defend the vision, if not the execution.
I helped get RDF into Drupal and spoke on the topic at two DrupalCons (one in Brussels and the other in Barcelona). No credit beyond that belongs to me, I've done no development on it since.
Arguments are mostly semantic about the semantic web. The computer science is done, the technology is used in real world applications in genetics, law, and military applications.
What is perhaps a PR shift is to differentiate the upper-case and lower-case semantic web.
The semantic web:
- a data exchange standard for graph based meta data and logical meta data
- a webservice with a standardized API
- a graph database, or other specialized store
- consumers or Agents
The Semantic Web (a la W3C)
- RDF(S), RDFa, OWL(S), etc
- REST/ SPARQL
- Sesame, Jena, YARS, Redland, etc
- Semantic Agents
Microformats and popularizations are all good. Folksonomy instead of Taxonomy - Clay Shirky, or rather, the mob (you and I) he describes, is hard to argue with. To mash up verified, trusted content in federated queries from heterogeneous data sources is cool to me, but not everyone.
Tim Berners-Less talk at Ted changes the term to "Linked Data". That makes sense. I think there's a struggle to create a revolution and an industry again - something with as big an impact as the web. Linked data is the web Sir Web wants/wanted. But the first web didn't happen because a few folks wanted it. We needed it. As the YCombinator mantra goes "make something people want". Making Semantic Web software has, in the past, made Semantic Web people happy... but not too many others (I have first hand experience in this).
A final two points:
Maybe it's fair to say the community may be too top-down. Luckily, freedom of speech extends to computer code.
Not everyone is going to be inspired and "believe" in grand visions. Artificial intelligence is perfect analogy. Our culture has adopted the term - for better or worse - to mean lots of things.
Contributions to science can to be viewed as non-political and amoral. But there is a polarization and politicization of organic and "industrial" agriculture. My opinion is that the fundamental issue is sustainability. I think the course correction for industry still needs to be sustainability (economic, environmental and social)
If you are into agriculture - (food sources in general) - the video below is an interesting interview with Norman's neighbors on the impact of chemical farming on soil and sustainability.
As a technologist from rural Maine, I like to keep in touch with ecology/agriculture topics. (my post at hacker news )
A family friend is in the hospital and could use some assistance. Please send along either a warm message which I will repost, or a small donation.
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I voted today, just an hour ago. The outcome of the election is unknown. There no reason for me to be cynical at the moment. In this moment, I'm happy.
Voting is one part of a participatory democracy - a clear path to being involved, belonging to something larger. However, Democracy, for me, is to be independent, educated, creative and unify around specific causes. These causes change depending on the world around us. This perspective on the purpose and meaning of democracy leads me to question voting as the best answer we have to creating democracy. Follows is a brief outline on how the internet and related technology offers new options for what government is, and does.
- Open Source voting machines:
Paying private companies to write bad software on unsecured hardware is obviously crazy when we are talking about one of the most basic components to the infrastructure of democracy. - Semantic Web and Open Government:
If I am honest with myself, I have to admit that no matter how much research I do, I doubt I really know what is going on in our government. I'm pretty sure there is waste, but the waste is likely systemic as much as it is caused by corruption. There are complex organizations spending most of their energy just being complex. Institutional complexity can be reduced when there is insight into on what that organization is even up to - ie "transparent government".
Putting all government documents online isn't enough to make Government transparent. When single laws are 800 pages, being able to search through the mountain of data is critical. But, even more difficult than finding what you want is summarizing and co-relating data. I won't elaborate on specifics here, but if the the whole of our public government is open, searchable, and easy to collect and reorganize into digestible pieces of knowledge, then we're all better off. - Game Theory:
Cloud computing. A great idea, unlocking new markets, new opportunities for internet startups to have access to computing scale and power. Head in the clouds? Like clean electric cars, the electricity still comes from somewhere. Maybe the cloud isn't puffy and white - it might just be black.
At a recent O'Reilly Ignite Boston, Tim O'Reilly gave the company spiel, mixed with a little extra enthusiasm and praise for technologists - a population thought of as family at O'Reilly, if not flock. The latter half of the talk uncovered the motivation for the emotion. Reminding me of Dennis Hopper Californian dramatics, he pleaded to do something that mattered. What mattered? The environment and education. Work on that, do something that matters.
Mr Big O. recounted ( or perhaps therapeutically re-lived what could be interpreted as post traumatic stress disorder) a meeting with the chief researcher for still partly secret International Report on Climate Change of a UN agency. Tim's question was on humanity's chances of surviving. The answer given: "we're fucked". Don't trust the UN? So thinks the pentagon too.
Even if climate change isn't "real" - the game still has to be played out because just maybe we are heading to the land of FAIL. Yes, Fuckdom. Not fuckdom like, "hey, I like to scare people", but fuckdom like inheriting the worst code you've ever seen which depends on closed source. There's a better chance of climate change being a big problem than you'll ever succeed significantly in a start up. Personally, I want to maintain the legacy app called Earth....
Disrupting Class was an excellent resource in providing a technology and business vocabulary which is applicable to the deep challenges facing public education today.
To be honest, my view of education is primarily emotive and visceral as it represents so many formative years of my life. I can not claim to bring objectivity to the dialogue. Being a relative of Carl Rogers and reading his "Freedom to Learn", as well as my mother being a retired, seasoned special education teacher writing her own book gives me some insights.
But it is as a technologist, sitting on the cusp of big change, that I can read with sense of calling - knowing that as a CTO of Better Lesson I'm privileged to be in the kind of position coveted by catalysts of renaissance, and admirers of diversity - where once there was only one word - philosophy. Besides the need to avenge my childhood (where I was to have skipped two grades, but also had the diplomacy of a Tasmanian Devil combined with winning the award for "Teachers Pest", an award created just for me if I remember), maybe now I can make a lot of folks happy.
This is the kind of book that makes me happy. Happy to me is a wholestic thing. I want to make a lot of money without others suffering. I want to pursue knowledge that sustainably changes the world. And I need help getting there.
No, the book is not a bible. But this is business.
For the last months, living as a tourist in Spain, I've gotten to know Valencia quite well. The heart of Valencia. I saw las Fallas, the grand tradition of a week long party of fireworks and countless other Catholic and cultural traditions, culminating in the torching of giant paper mache scuptures - makes me wonder if the burning man is a cheap rip off. I don't care if it's a rip-off. I like American ingenuity and artistic license. But, I do like Valencia. I have no Spanish heritage, but being in Valencia is like gaining an extra grandmother, who is really cute, witty, and talkative.
Friendly, polite - very temperate, a reflection of the weather perhaps. Traditions, and the artistic athletic youth. Grand architecture, and rice fields. A city which diverted a river, an converted the trough into a very pleasant park, with trees from around the world. There's plenty of beauty in the in the Mediterranean, but this has been similar to an extended stay in a village. Imagine a successful little village from 400, 600, 1000 years ago - and the same people live here, and are expanding. Valencia is like it's famous oranges - blooms consistently and sweetly.
Question:
There are many diverse Arab cultures - and opinions. However, in general, the voice of the moderate and educated Arab is made illegitimate when there is a minority oppressed, arguably to the point of extremism. Whether the US and African Americans, China and Tibet; I would suggest there needs to be open dialog with the "other". In a polarized Arab world... how can you envision healing internally?
That's my question for the Queen. Bravo for tackling such a sensitive subject. From the YouTube page on Middle East dialog.
And the video:
Questions last until August 12. Hope this is big. Reminds of me of the gentle approach of the One Voice movement to empower moderates.
This is an open letter to China - if it is possible to write such a letter.
When I traveled to China (Beijing, Xi'an, Shanghai, Hong Kong) in 2001, I found the towering density of the country breath taking. One country, but another world, filled with cultural diversity, coordinated for production.
In Beijing, the Chinese New Year celebration had just finished, and the coal which fueled the city had created a layer of lingering smoke over the city which I could see from the plane, along with a section of the Great Wall, on approach to landing.
When you work on something really hard for really long time - you have learned a lot. But, you might not be achieving the goals you set out to achieve. Something near the end is holding you back from success; invisible and powerful.
Over time, it's easy to loose track of your goals. To more accurately describe that process for me, I pursue my goals stubbornly, with each subgoal towards achieving a larger goal becoming its own journey. I enjoy the journey, and my ethics, my principles and imagination keep me oriented in that process.
This is from May of 2001. The speed of the economy, the omni-presence of corporate media, and the complexity of our personal lives, has made many existing institutions of change (like education, our government, and even cultural norms) increasingly ineffective. Morality, the frame of reference for living, our paradigms, are being outpaced by technological changes.
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