Category: Four pillars

Loved this story in the Onion: Local Idiot to Post Comment On Internet. Some of the bits that had me choking on my camomile:

Mylenek, who rarely in his life has been capable of formulating an idea or opinion worth the amount of oxygen required to express it, went on to guarantee that the text of his comment would be misspelled to the point of incomprehension, that it would defy the laws of both logic and grammar, and that it would allege that several elements of the video are homosexual in nature.

“The result will be an astonishing combination of ignorance, offensiveness, and sheer idiocy,” Mylenek said.

According to the idiot, he will become incensed at the quality and sentiment of the comments already posted below the video—which will include such replies as “not great, nice try tho,” “FIRSTIES!!!” and “wtf?? lol so random.” At this point, Mylenek said, he will feel a deep, unwavering desire to offer a dissenting opinion, which he has hinted will include the words “gay” and “reatrd” [sic].

Go on, read the whole thing. You know you want to. In case you missed it, here’s the link again.

My thanks to Scott Beale of Laughing Squid, whose tweet alerted me to the story.

A week or so ago, I learnt that Dell had filed a patent on “cloud computing.” Today, Sam Johnston informs me that Dell’s Notice of Allowance for Cloud Computing has been cancelled. [Thanks, Sam!]. Incidentally, Sam is worth reading. I “discovered” him while digging around on cloud computing issues, and, serendipitously, found that he has recently taken to following jobsworth at twitter. Which is where I tend to hide.]

The entire incident reminds me of “Sunday Sport” headlines during the 1980s. Nestled between Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster, Aliens Turned My Son Into An Olive and Killer Plant Stalks Queen Mum was my favourite: Double Decker Bus Found on Moon, with a crude image of a bus slapped disproportionately on top of a photo of the moon. Why favourite? Because, next issue, they majored with : Double Decker Bus Disappears From Moon. Aided and abetted by removing said crude image of bus from photo of moon.

At dinner a few days ago, I met someone called Brian Shaler. Interesting guy. Interesting blog. Some interesting points of view, such as his sense of discovering this while at the same time knowing it would be true:

And some interesting perspectives. Literally:

He’s going to go places. Again literally. Brian, we shall meet again.

Calcutta used to be called a city of palaces. Surprised?  You shouldn’t be. Not that long ago, Calcutta had views and vistas like the ones below, illustrated by the Daniells:

I love Calcutta. And it’s rare that I meet someone who’s lived there and who doesn’t share that love. Yet, as the city has evolved over the years, even the biased observer would be forced to admit that not everything is perfect.

I’ve had the opportunity to spend time in many great cities over the years; there’s something about them that continues to fascinate me.

The writings of two incredible people, Jane Jacobs and Christopher Alexander, if anything, served to accentuate and sharpen my interest. I would particularly cite The Death and Life of Great American Cities and A Pattern Language to those who are interested.

For many years now, I’ve wondered what it would feel like to build a great city from scratch. How to make sure it is alive, organic, adaptable, real. Now, thanks to friend Sabeer Bhatia, I have the chance to find out, albeit vicariously.

He thinks big. Very big. He’s taken on an amazing project, Nanocity. Here’s a quote from the web site:

To develop a sustainable city with world class infrastructure and to create an ecosystem for innovation leading to economy, ecology and social cohesion

Go take a look at the site and try and understand the scale of the project. 11,000 acres, the size of Manhattan, between two rivers. A stone’s throw from Delhi.

Sabeer thinks big. And I wish him well.

I like thinking about things. Savouring them as I roll them around my head, tasting them, mulling over them. Ruminating. Masticating.

I like thinking about things in themes. What do I mean? Let’s take an example. A recent Harvard Business Review article asked if we should Invest in the Long Tail. Apparently, research had shown that even in a long-tail world, blockbusters continued to exist and were of significance. Chris Anderson wrote a response pointing out the importance of getting the definitions right, and showed how, in his opinion, the research was consistent with the theory. And a whole conversation started.

Reading all that set me thinking. It made me go back to the oft-quoted Clay Shirky article on Power Laws, Weblogs and Inequality, serendipitously referred to a couple of days ago, in a post by Hugh Macleod on, of all things, cloud computing.

And this is what I’m thinking about:

1. In a broadcast age where the power of distribution lay in the hands of a select few, there were blockbusters.

2. In the internet age, where the power of distribution is less narrowly held, there continue to be blockbusters.

3. The blockbusters are different. They come from different motives, give rise to different opportunities, form part of different business models. Let’s call the broadcast blockbusters Type A blockbusters, and the internet blockbusters Type B blockbusters.

4. When the power of distribution is narrowly held, someone else chooses the blockbuster, then uses advertising, availability and proximity to try and self-fulfil the prophecy. Sometimes that succeeds, sometimes not. We all have our Waterworlds to bear.

5. When the power of distribution is democratised, everything changes. Now the blockbuster is about power laws rather than self-fulfilling prophecies.

The moral of the story is this: You could game a Type A blockbuster. You can’t game the Type B blockbuster. [This is what I’m thinking about; this post is as provisional as any other post I write].