Technology is no match for Inflation! Chris Anderson writes and worth reading.
You hate cords and wires and Intel's got a gift for you. Hope it will work for hybrid cars, too.
Overwhelmed by Feeds? Google Reader pries into your read patterns. Dang!
Control? Not in this context. Subversive Social Media.
Why are some people afraid of cloud computing taking over everything? Fairly understandable if you've got no email!
You have been forewarned. Death Stats via illustration. Click illustration
With iPhone and G Phone pushing it, where art thou going to Palm?
Events:
The Event to be In. You may still catch it. Gnomedex
You're in Portland! Legion of Tech
May have just been another meet up of Manila's Tech folks from the looks of it. But surprisingly, as if by some strange force of camaraderie and unique informal grassroots feel, the first BarCamp Manila is nothing short of magical.
First, there was the mix. Within the first few minutes of the introductions , dev guys, web people and as well as company heads who at first were cooped up with their familiar posse began to acknowledge the whole group of people present as their comfort zones. As the pizza and soda/beer cans slowly began to empty, gone too was the urge to remain within each personal space. The G2VC lounge area has indeed become a real chat room - and this time the people and names have actual faces and bodies, not just avatars.
Second is the timing. This has been a nagging question for quite some time and nobody seemed to know why it has dragged on without somebody pitching it to happen. The dev communities for Ruby and Java and perhaps for other programming languages have been actively meeting regularly. There's also blogger meetups and even software industry shirt and tie meetings. Yet all of them were focused on their niches. Like the much of what makes the web successful at present, you need all these disparate specialties together to increase the chances of success in the tech world. Credit Winston D, Jerome as well as Sacha and a bunch of background movers for recognizing this and making it all happen at such a short notice. Having Jay Aguilar of Google surprise the group with his presence also souped the event a notch higher.
Third - it is fun and educational! Well, one can only guess that all personal interests set aside for something even bigger, the leading personalities in the RP tech world stripped themselves off much of their egos and put passion in their respective works as the homing device to network with like minds in the room. This made up for a high activity chatter well up to midnight. The food and venue were just perfect as most of the people eventually had to turn of their laptops or risk missing the opportunity to get up to people they've known only in the virtual world. At the core, people are all fans I guess. So looking forward to the next BarCamp Manila. Just wondering if a 7-minute live band performance is allowed next time. Check the Flickr pages for pics and Ustream video record of the event in case you missed it.
Just as I was eating my 3 day-old pandesal for breakfast today, a thought just came to me. Really. It has been at the back of my mind after watching the end of pool coverage and seeing lanky specimens out-swim competition, event after event in Beijing. That I may never be a able to witness my beloved country winning an Olympic gold medal will haunt me the rest of my spirit days.
Yet, here comes Michael Phelps who by sheer number of golds won may probably be the human equivalent of Fort Knox. Is there any man alive who is more apt to play the title role in a James Bond remake of Goldfinger? Michael Phelps truly is the man with a Midas touch. Touche.
So how many Olympic golds do you have now, Michael? Honestly, do you remember the significance of each of those yellow ornament now hanging in whatever part of your house as testament to your skill and discipline. Hell, you can even make a wind chime with all that if you feel creative. It may not sound pretty but definitely will remind you of the sound of bells clanging to signify the final lap, seconds just before touching the wall and then raising the fists in jubilation.
Compare that to us with no Olympic gold yet - where a medal standing is such a celebrated event that corrupt politicians stumble upon themselves offering all sorts of reward (pot of money or Knighthood of sorts) in the name of a nation's pride. Never mind if those really are public funds anyway. Can you fault us for sending a delegation where almost always, officials outnumber the athletes in every Olympics? I think it makes sense because scouting, you know, really is important.
So here is my plea. Michael. Would you, in the name of Olympic brotherhood be willing to donate one of your gold medals to the Filipino people? Aw, c'mon that wouldn't be so difficult. You can always get a replacement come 2012 if you keep away from girls and partying. Think hard about it. That would be better than all the media coverage you'd get from Baltimore. We'd even get you a place of your own to swim the hours away endlessly. We're not talking about square feet of gleaming tiles all around. We're talking about beaches, man and coral reefs that will bring out the merman in you.
We'll even throw in companions for you. Name it. Sea cow, dolphins even mermaids if you want as we have them on the daily telly every other year or so. Sharks? Better lay off that as we reserve them for our government offices to keep the crocodiles company.
And the perks - it will never end as it is far more than you and I could ever imagine. Just look it up. It's time you brush up on your geography and chill out for awhile. We're called Filipinos from that group of islands shaped like a maiden called the Philippines. Both a paradise and place of drudgery for several million cheery folks. Compared to other countries that are like big rooms in this Earth mansion, ours is the servants quarters. Lonely, lively and its got selfless service and hope written across its walls. Sad to say, there's little or no commercial value in it.
So, in case you grow a bit of conscience and true insight to sharing life's blessings, please consider this plea. We won't mind waiting another four years but you lay off throwing us a silver because that would be disrespectful to the Games and to the value of your hard work. And accepting that would remind us of a guy named Judas getting insignificant loot. You may want prefer to give to Africa instead or to some other cause but keep in mind, they will eventually get more golds than you. Ever heard of marathons?
Here's a salute to you Michael Phelps. May you ever be so gracious with what life has given you both in endorsements and Facebook friends' requests, of passing the haul of that wonderful mustache connected to face and a body, and quite possibly, successfully passing yourself off as a human and not being found out that you're actually a fish. A goldfish, of course.
And in the remote possibility that Michael declines, Zaki - remember Daddy tried. Soon it will be your turn to get us one, legitimately.
Love.
Dad
There's an interesting post by Marshall over at ReadWriteWeb entitled, 'Does Good Tech Need PR?'
I suppose this has to do with tech inherent need to be spread to a wider audience and gain some measure of adoption and funding enough to equate with success. That's where PR comes in. But we've also read stories about natural and organic growth of certain apps or services without going through the use of PR services. So a follow up might be needed on contributing factors that increases chances of gaining 'coverage', maybe PR versus other means like pure social media.
And incidentally, more than good tech, I'd love to hear stories of people doing good work - something that benefits people and other selfless acts without the urge for citation or acknowledgment. That is what makes it different from tech, I suppose.
Pipes: Something I'd get around to trying out one of these days. Promise.
Dapper and FeedMySearch: Seems I'd have some use for it. Really into RSS these past weeks. Simplifies getting personalized content and it sure saves time for more thorough reading. It's like going to school and signing up for courses that you'd sure like to take and if things aren't great, then you move on. Tech spoils you.
iPhone: At the start of the week, iPhone has pretty much been buzzed with some stories both good (Morph Labs' Morph AppSpace and that humongous number of downloads) and bad (kill switch and few bugs reagrding hardware).
And it is just the beginning. With web apps popularity, there will sure be some scaling issues and what better way than getting metrics first taken cared of by Pinch Media.
Enterprise 2.0. use is more about culture change than ease of use so I'm not surprised that in some companies, adoption is moving at a turtle's pace. I say you cannot wait till everyone's ready, it takes political will and substantial changes in what management thinks of it. The McKinsey article.
