confused of calcutta

a blog about information

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Entries from February 2008

Who needs horror films?

February 26th, 2008 · 6 Comments · Four pillars

I probably never grew up. I love comedies, even slapstick. I can watch humorous stuff till the cows come home.
And I detest horror. I must have been 20 when I walked out of Damien Omen II and I’ve never been back. Not once. I am not interested in paying money for such an experience.

You find [...]

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Musing about clouds: More about Web 2.0 in the Enterprise

February 26th, 2008 · 9 Comments · Four pillars

…..and still somehow it’s cloud illusions I recall….
…..I really don’t know clouds at all….

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Now playing: Joni Mitchell - Both Sides Now
via FoxyTunes

One of my favourite songs from one of my favourite musicians. I could listen to Joni reading a telephone directory. I would probably pay for it. In fact, if hers was the voice I [...]

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Musing about artificial scarcity

February 25th, 2008 · 5 Comments · Because Effect, Opensource

The Because Effect is all about understanding abundances and scarcities. Any firm that truly understands the abundances and the scarcities of a given economic era is bound to prosper, as Gilder noted many years ago.
Opensource is all about The Because Effect, and is a means of making abundant things that were previously scarce. Abundance that [...]

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“The other 10% of the time, you lose the company”

February 25th, 2008 · 9 Comments · Four pillars

You may have noticed that I like quoting what Howard Schneiderman said, many years ago,  while he was at Monsanto, reproduced below. (I’ve referred to the quote thrice before, over the years):
When you turn down a request for funding an R&D project, you are right 90% of the time. That’s a far higher rate of [...]

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Relaxedly rambling

February 22nd, 2008 · 5 Comments · Music, visualisation

I’ve been lazing all evening. My older two children are at a concert in Brixton, the youngest is in bed, my wife has her church group over, and I’ve been left to myself. Which is a good thing sometimes, especially when it’s the end of the week and i’ve spent most of it travelling. [...]

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Visualising “flocking”

February 21st, 2008 · 5 Comments · visualisation

I’m always on the lookout for good visualisation tools and techniques. Which is why I really liked this by Christian Cenizal. There’s something very Yogi-Berra-like “Nobody goes there any more, it’s too crowded” about it, the way the worms come together and then break up just as the party gets going. As one of the [...]

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Children brought up in front of the CCTV

February 21st, 2008 · 2 Comments · Four pillars

Finished reading Cathi Unsworth’s The Singer while on a plane a couple of days ago. Did it almost at one sitting, found it that enjoyable. Riveting. A searing, soaring Punk novel, with visions as dark as Erebus. Strongly recommended to all who connect with that generation.
The book criss-crosses between the late Seventies and the early [...]

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the burden of captaincy?

February 19th, 2008 · 1 Comment · Cricket

A rushed post before taking off for Heathrow.
It appears that Dhoni scored fifty in today’s match against Sri Lanka. Not surprising. But without a single boundary? Wow. Dhoni? Now that’s a captain’s knock.

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The $32 million dollar question

February 19th, 2008 · No Comments · Four pillars

There’s money flowing from log cabins to the White House. I quote from the Washington Post:
Sen. Barack Obama has set a new online record, raising more than $28 million online in one month.
To put this into context, Howard Dean, known as the first Internet candidate, raised $27 million — during his whole campaign.
A spokesman [...]

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Musing about enterprise information and flow

February 18th, 2008 · 19 Comments · Four pillars

The diagram above is from an article headlined “The Life Cycle of a Blog Post, From Servers to Spiders to Suits — to You” which appeared in Wired about a year ago. Go read the original, the diagram is interactive and instructive.
Why instructive? After all, doesn’t everyone in the blogosphere know about ping servers, search [...]

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