Daniel

Sandy and Social Networking

There were two big differences between Sandy for us and many past storms.

First, we did not lose power (yet) which is a real plus. Second, since we continued to have Internet access it was remarkable the active interaction with friends and near-friends who were close and geographically far away.

Our Sandy experience started in Williamsburg, WV, where Ellen and I had gone early to attend the ACT-IAC Executive Leadership Conference (ELC). My brilliant idea was to stay at a B&B rather than the conference hotels since we really like B&B’s and this allowed Ellen to feel like it was a bit more of a vacation from home since she gets to wander around Williamsburg while I go to the meetings. Continue reading “Sandy and Social Networking”

Big Data – Is It A Big Deal?

In our increasingly fast-paced world, the buzz-word du jour, Big Data, looks like a winner of the fastest transition from cool, new, vacuous, poorly-defined concept to mainstream acceptance and implementation.

A year or two ago if you had mentioned Hadoop, listeners would have thought you had the hiccups (or had just sneezed). Now even the non-Technorati use the term in casual conversations. Continue reading “Big Data – Is It A Big Deal?”

Performing Versus Entertaining

Over the last month or so, we had the pleasure of going to performances by Kristen Chenoweth and Patti LuPone. The first we saw at Constitution Hall, the latter at Strathmore, a facility near us in Montgomery County, MD.

We were on the side at Constitution Hall and in the second row of the Orchestra at Strathmore, so one difference between our appreciation of the two performances was that it was if Patti LuPone was practically in our living room. That is, if we had a sunken living room and could seat a few thousand people.

Both performers are wonderful singers. I was lucky enough to see Chenoweth in Wicked as the good witch Glinda in which she was hilarious and LuPone in Gypsy twice as well as Sweeney Todd where in addition to singing she played the tuba (and triangle). Continue reading “Performing Versus Entertaining”

Federal Countdown – October 5th

Every now and again, I get invited to appear on the Federal Countdown, hosted by Francis Rose, Friday afternoons from 3pm to 4pm on WFED radio.

The focus of the show is to have two guests select their three most important stories about the Federal Government. The third most important article is discussed by each guest individually. Then both comment on the two selected second-most and first-most (first-most or just most?) important stories of the week.

Yesterday John Salamone, who is a managing consultant at Federal Management Partners, were the guests. I thought I would provide a brief summary of the three articles I brought in this entry.

The audio for the session is posted on the WFED web-site at:

http://www.federalnewsradio.com/156/3067288/Federal-News-Countdown-Big-data-sequestration-solutions-and-cloud-savings.

Continue reading “Federal Countdown – October 5th”

Turning A Page

Last night I had the pleasure of going to a game lost by the Washington Nationals. And, of course, the reason was that in the middle of the 9^th inning, we found out that the Pittsburgh Pirates had beaten the second place Atlanta Braves which meant the Nationals had won the National League East.

I am one of those people born in Washington DC and lived in the area all my life. I still have fond memories of my father taking me to see the hapless Washington Senators at Griffith Stadium. For those who never went, Griffith Stadium was sort-of a mirror image of Fenway Park in Boston. Washington’s ‘Green Monster’ was in right field, not like Fenway’s left field one. The other difference was that Washington’s team was ALWAYS terrible and the crowd’s fairly small. Continue reading “Turning A Page”

Follow Your Passion

I have learned over the years that doing things that you are passionate about is very important.

This was brought home to me earlier this week when I had lunch with a long-time friend of mine who I worked with during my time at Sun Microsystems. We were comparing job experiences and she remarked that every time she took a job purely because of the money that it ended up being a mistake.

Of course, I recognize that acting on that understanding is not always easy. Continue reading “Follow Your Passion”

Using Biological Constructs As Metaphors For Developing System Architecture

Last week I read about a research team at Harvard lead by George Church that encoded Church’s next book in DNA. As the write-up in the Harvard Medical School web page, http://hms.harvard.edu/content/writing-book-dna, said:

“Although George Church’s next book doesn’t hit the shelves until Oct. 2, it has already passed an enviable benchmark: 70 billion copies—roughly triple the sum of the top 100 books of all time.”

A Wall Street Journal write-up by Robert Lee Hotz, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444233104577593291643488120.html?mod=e2tw, quoted Church as pointing out that:

“A device the size of your thumb could store as much information as the whole Internet”

The articles go on to talk about the issues involved with the achievement, for example currently it is only possible to read the information sequentially and both reading and writing is slow, all of which in the end are engineering issues which will be solved over time.

The interesting issue to me is how it is increasingly useful to use biological metaphors to drive thinking about systems design and architecture and in more recent times of course using actual biology itself. And while we use the words, I am not convinced we have thought through all of the implications.

Continue reading “Using Biological Constructs As Metaphors For Developing System Architecture”

Thoughts On Technology Futures

For the last two year’s I have written, or largely written, the Powertek Corporation, www.powertekcorporation.com, response to a SmartCEO, http://www.smartceo.com/, set of questions associated with where Powertek is positioned technically and what that means to the company. While preparing this year’s, I looked at what I had written in 2011 and by golly, much of what I wrote is still pretty good, so thought I would post it here and then follow up a while later with our new, improved thinking.

Continue reading “Thoughts On Technology Futures”

A Visit to Cornerstone Christian Church

A few weeks ago, early on a Saturday morning, I found myself at the Cornerstone Christian Church in Richmond, VA, sitting in a chair in the Church social hall. Facing me were perhaps 15 young (and not so young) immigrants from various parts of Sudan.

I had wrestled for perhaps two weeks since I was invited to kick off a two-day seminar on volunteer organizing, trying to figure out what I could offer that would be of value. For each of these immigrants were members of the Lost Boys (or Girls) of Sudan, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Boys_of_Sudan. Continue reading “A Visit to Cornerstone Christian Church”

The History of Invulnerability

When I was young I was an avid comic reader, originally obsessive about lots of DC comics like Superman and Batman and later Marvel comics like Spiderman and the Avengers. Today I get to see all of these characters on the movie screen, the aging fanboy I guess I have become, without much regard to the quality of the film.

The last thing that would have occurred to me to think about was the fact that the comics were created by actual people with actual lives and actual concerns and issues.

Last night we went to see The History of Invulnerability by David Bar Katz at the DCJCC. The play focuses on the story of Jerry Siegel, one of the creators of Superman in 1938 along with his artist partner, Joe Shuster. Continue reading “The History of Invulnerability”