Month: October 2012

1000 Years of Cultural Evolution for Reuse – James C. Bennett

by

“What the USA did was to take the patterns and toolkit the British used to create their society, and to simplify, universalize, and generalize it until it became a versatile template that could quickly convert expanses of raw land into new, functioning self-governing communities without a thousand years of cultural evolution, and a concept of citizenship that could take European peasant communities who had been dumbly following orders for a thousand years, and turn them within a generation into citizens, jurors, legislators, militiamen and volunteers, vestrymen and congregation-members, entrepreneurs, and self-actualized persons — the whole Anglosphere toolkit — all in a deliberate manner that the British never thought they would need, but now might do well to look at.

“Americans have in many ways been congratulating themselves for the wrong things. The truths of the Declaration were hardly novel or shocking to the Englishmen who read them; rather, they saw them as a Whig five-finger exercise that had been boilerplate since 1688. What was shocking was that the Americans were throwing their own ideals back in their face.”

James C. Bennett, July 8, 2006, at http://anglosphere.com/weblog/archives/2006_07.html

Also preserved at: http://explorersfoundation.org/glyphery/525.html

Far out there

by

Once again, Craig Venter is looking for new challenges. The latest may be Martian DNA.

I have thought for some time that life on Mars is going to consist of microorganisms and be buried several feet below the surface of the planet soil. I have even blogged about it before.

Now, there is a possibility of a nucleotide sequencer that could go to Mars on the next probe in 2018.

In what could become a race for the first extraterrestrial genome, researcher J. Craig Venter said Tuesday that his Maryland academic institute and his company, Synthetic Genomics, would develop a machine capable of sequencing and beaming back DNA data from the planet.

Separately, Jonathan Rothberg, founder of Ion Torrent, a DNA sequencing company, is collaborating on an effort to equip his company’s “Personal Genome Machine” for a similar task.

“We want to make sure an Ion Torrent goes to Mars,” Rothberg told Technology Review.

Although neither team yet has a berth on a Mars rocket, their plans reflect the belief that the simplest way to prove there is life on Mars is to send a DNA sequencing machine.

“There will be DNA life forms there,” Venter predicted Tuesday in New York, where he was speaking at the Wired Health Conference.

Venter said researchers working with him have already begun tests at a Mars-like site in the Mojave Desert. Their goal, he said, is to demonstrate a machine capable of autonomously isolating microbes from soil, sequencing their DNA, and then transmitting the information to a remote computer, as would be required on an unmanned Mars mission. Heather Kowalski, a spokeswoman for Venter, confirmed the existence of the project but said the prototype system was “not yet 100 percent robotic.”

Doing this on Mars would avoid the problem of contamination by earth organisms. New life forms that don’t use DNA might be a problem but most people who have thought about this believe that DNA is the genetic material of all life forms. Of course, protein, which may have been the original genetic material on earth could also be the Martian equivalent.

We are starting to see commercial spacecraft develop and one was used to reach the international space station recently. A Mars mission is another order of complexity but by 2018, it may be an option.

What Killed Best Buy – Apple

by

A recent Bloomberg cover article is titled “Big Box Zombie” and it discusses all the issues that have stressed out Best Buy, and a potential offer to take the company private by its founder Richard Schulze.

For me, Best Buy brings back memories of when the stores first opened. We were on consulting engagements and the whole team would go into the store at once and just disperse to the various corners looking at gadgets, computers, CD’s, movies and anything else they had in stock. It would take forever to gather everyone up and check out since they got lost in the nooks and crannies of that vast store full of electronic goodness. Everyone wanted to go there, and no one wanted to leave, and no one left empty handed.

Best Buy’s problems today are often described as “showrooming”, which occurs when potential buyers visit a physical store to touch and inspect a product but then purchase that same product online at a lower price (usually from Amazon) which usually includes no taxes and free shipping, an exact sequence that occurred for me when I bought my flat screen TV.

However, the REAL problem is something else – Apple has killed the DIY sense of the Win-Tel world of laptops, PC’s and software and its innumerable combinations and permutations. We thought it was fun to look at all the myriad physical layouts and performance combinations you could have between processors, layout, memories, hard drive, etc… not to mention the balance of weight and size and screen for laptops. Not only did every vendor (Toshiba, Dell, IBM, etc…) have these combinations, but each vendor had its own strengths and weaknesses to boot. Since there aren’t even competitors to the iPad for the most part, it is either the iPad or nothing, and you don’t have to go to Best Buy for that.

There used to be multiple portable music devices and formats, and all sorts of different types of cameras and lenses and everything related to that. Now everyone has an iPod which is quickly being superseded by just using the phone, and while cameras are still interesting they too are being marginalized to “throw away” cameras being replaced by mobile phone and high end cameras for those that care (a much smaller group).

For software, Apple has moved to the online store. You don’t have to go to the store anymore. Even Microsoft has started to move there, with “teaser” versions installed and then you download the rest. No need to buy a physical box and a CD anymore.

The TV is now tied very much into your cable or satellite provider and their DVR; sure you buy a TV, but it is from a few makers and you can pretty much figure it all out online. Buying a TV now can be complicated with wi-fi and internet connections and features but it is all laid out at Amazon or online in comparative guides and then you pick your Samsung and that’s it. Your Blu Ray DVD player is a bit more complicated and often gets you online programming or you hook it to your Xbox and want to run it through your sound system so this perhaps is an area where gadgets can get a bit exciting but it is mostly hooking together these commodity devices not a DIY effort.

There is very little to get excited about in a Best Buy. Apple has the excitement, and their laptops and desktops set the standard. The college age kids I know all want an Apple – a PC is something you get on discount, perhaps as a throw away machine or if you don’t have enough saved up for a Mac. Phones do have excitement with iPhones and Android phones, but most of that is tied up with particular carriers as well and can be easily done through their shops.

The death of physical media for CD’s, DVD’s (it’s mostly coming), a lot of games (that’s coming too), books (mostly dead), and software also makes the “big box” store format look crazy. I won’t even bother to compare the Apple store to the vast Best Buy store – that is like shooting fish in a barrel.

I used to look forward so much to a Best Buy trip. I even braved the insane crowds and haphazard staff to try to purchase items during the holiday season. The last time I was in a Best Buy it seemed eerily empty, and no one was too excited to be there. Now it is just a nostalgia trip for me when it used to be exciting to find your own way in a big store full of DIY gadgets.

Good luck Schulze. You’re gonna need it. You’d be better off trying something new then trying to resurrect a spark that’s long since dead.

Cross posted at LITGM