Monthly Archives: August 2006

Which Universe are you from again?

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To me the most appealing and mind-bending aspect of string theory – now considered a fairly mainstream approach to a mechanistic understanding of the world – is Brane Cosmology, which suggests we may be “surrounded” by inhabitants of other parallel universes.   More fanciful than any new age guru speak, Brane Cosmology opens an almost unbelievable world of possibilities that fit squarely within the theoretical constraints of this notion of how our mechanistic universe works.

We’d be unable to interact directly with these other systems due to complications that arise from living on a “brane”, or large extension of a string.  However we might be able to communicate using gravitational forces which may be the product of closed strings and can therefore move between Branes, visualized in Brian Green’s excellent book and PBS series “The Elegant Universe” as slices of bread within a multidimensional loaf.

Please pass the butter?

Reason Rules! Not.

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Over at the House of J there’s some discussion about the irrationality of some security measures and about the AOL search results privacy scandal (which I also think is a questionably rational concern).

I’ll put up my comments from over there:

IMHO people are missing the key point about privacy — that cat is out of the bag. We need rules about how to penalize for abuses of information, not the pretense that AOL/Yahoo/Google/MSN will do a great job of keeping information away from Govt or commercialization. People worry about abstract Government abuses even as their search stream is processed to invoke better manipulation of their behavior.

RE screening pilots … sounds logical, but the FAA’s record of identifying flight school terrorists is not … impressive. I think the “answer” is for us all to realize that we can’t lower the risk threshold to zero so we should optimize the costs and benefits, allocating resources to the “low hanging fruit” problems in all sectors that are cheap to solve. Solving terror problems in the current fashion is so expensive it’s breaking the bank which will lead to more vulnerability.

Hurricanes! Not.

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I’ve been assuming that Global Warming was in fact contributing to an increase in the severity and number of hurricanes, but wondering if the alarmists had been exaggerating the effects for psychological effect. But here is the NOAA Hurricane data and this more recent NOAA analysis.  Neither suggest any catastrophes are looming. In fact we may have one of the *least* severe Hurricane seasons on record this year unless some big ones are brewing out there in the twinkling eyes of …. mother nature.

Excuse me but I’d like people to separate the politics from the science. Why is this so hard for *scientists* to do these days? I’m rapidly, and with great frustration, coming to the conclusion that it is because alarmism fuels research and focuses more attention on scientists.

Global warming is clear but catastrophic consequences from it appear to be so uncertain, so ill defined that it would be immoral and foolish to base hugely expensive public policy decisons on delaying warming for a few years.

Let’s try an experiment for a few years.

1) Take $80 billion – each year – from our bloated defense and homeland security budgets.

2) Ignore Global Warming

3) Solve *every major human problem* on earth. (The UN estimates that approximately 80 billion per year would solve virtually all major health, water, food problems).

Camp Latgawa

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Just back from a fine weekend with other Unitarians up at Camp Latgawa, a Methodist owned camp about an hour into the mountains from Ashland, Oregon. Although I don’t attend “real” church much I really enjoy meeting some of the bright, enthusiastic, and usually fairly old folks who make up our fellowship in Ashland. Talks about astronomy and how the natural world may be seen as encompassing of all human thought and can underpin the notion of “spirituality” were good thoughtful Unitarian fare. Also, by stacking chairs and folding up tables I have redeemed myself and no longer possess the distinction of being the world’s only excommunicated unitarian.

Travel peeps – 1 generation = internet peeps

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Asked about my CA trip I noted that my second Google party was not as fun as the first. Free (good) beer and mini burgers only go so far. I think the magic of Silicon Valley is wearing off – in fact this was my second trip down in 4 weeks with a Virginia reunion in between, a nice trip to the ol’ Virginia roots and relatives in the Shenandoah Valley.
There was a fun highlight of being in on a conversation between Google and Microsoft’s key search guys at the Google Party, though no spectacular SEO insights came out of it other than unmasking the main MSNdude poster at WMW (who was talking to GoogleGuy).

One thing I noted is how travel industry folks tend to be 1) friendlier than internet peeps, 2) older, often by a generation, and 3) lacking at internet events. This may serve me well as I push ahead with some travel ideas where I’ll be mashing up some databases with flickr, google video, and maps. I think the Travel industry is so mired in the mythologies surrounding print and TV advertising that it will literally take a new generation of travel professionals to realize the lost online opportunities. With the new sites I’ll be putting more of my money where my mouth is.

SES San Jose – exhibitors are followers, not leaders

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Note to middle sized companies that have exhibit staff – you’d probably be surprised to see them in action. Although I’m usually impressed by the people from Google and Yahoo who are typically well informed, enthusiastic, and polite, many of the technology exhibit folks seem poorly informed about the marketplace and too focused on their own pitch and “sale”.

I’d guess that the return on investment is negative for all but a few exhibitors, though perhaps the leads they get at an event like SES San Jose – the world’s top Search related conference – are golden and therefore hugely valuable?

The good news for me is that I now understand *very* clearly that outsourcing any search optimization I want to do would probably be a waste. Some of these places don’t even keep up with the freshest SEO news from Matt , WMW , or even SES. There are some exceptions to this SEO ignorance by SEO companies. I’m always very impressed with Bruce Clay . His approaches reflect recent SEO information. Bruce is always very well informed and helpful even to non-clients. Another exception would be freelance guys like Aaron Wall of SEObook fame. However, I’d say there are only a few hundred people in the world who know enough about SEO to make their insight more valuable than, for example, a clever high schooler who spends a few days absorbing information from Matt Cutts, the Google Guidelines, and Danny Sullivan posts. I’m increasingly skeptical that time spent at WMW and SES forums does more than create noise and confusion. This idea was supported even at a conference party by comments from the real engineers at MSN and Google who post at WMW as “MSNdude” and “GoogleGuy”.

SES San Jose – it’s almost like I’m not … here.

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I’m sitting in my San Jose hotel room a few blocks from the Search Engine Strategies conference thinking how much better the information about the conference is … right here on my pc … than at the conference itself.   I’m not knocking SES (yet), just noting that a broadband connection and good website coverage means that even up in my little Oregon town I can “see” the emerging online world as well – in some ways much better – than hanging out in the middle of things here in Silicon Valley.  Microsoft’s MIX06 had more PCs all over the place where SES, like last year, has a long line to check mail unless you want to lug your own pc all over the place.   Also an inconvenience if you want to check up on blogs or conference updates.   The key point?  The virtual 24/7 conference online is rocking, and will only get better over time.

I shouldn’t knock the conference because I’m just an “exhibits only” attendee and SES clearly has emerged as the key search conference.   Also, Danny Sullivan is arguably the sharpest SEO observer in the world and based on comments by some presenters I know he treats his peeps well …

YET …  it sure seems they have the same tired “Our SEO is the best ever” exhibitors and perhaps as many as 60+% of the same presenters show after show, most pretending they are better at or more helpful with PPC and organic optimization results than … a smart high school kid … which is not supported by much evidence I can see, especially on the organic side of SEO.   I do hate to miss Matt Cutts comments and the Eric Schmidt interview but maybe I’ll bump into them at the party at Google tonight.

After going to 3 full Webmasterworld conferences, two SES as exhibits only, and one AD-TECH (where they more-nicely-than-SES allow exhibits people to attend the keynotes which are the best part of that conference), I think Webmasterworld offers the best insights and networking.  One presenter who appeared at both told the WMW crowd he had to dumb down the presentation for SES. Perhaps he says the opposite here, but I think SES, at three times the price, is not even as valuable as a WMW conference for all but a handful of niches such as Vendors, who’ll do better at this venue because they are selling things rather than dispensing quality information.   (Man there are a lot of SEO clueless salespeeps in SEO!)

Of course personal contacts are important, but I know I’ll find some people I know over at the Google Party later this evening.

Steven says I’m insane. OK, but I’m still right.

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Steven Berlin Johnson, the clever fellow who suggested that TV and video games often make kids smarter and we should stop fretting so much over screen time, is now defending the indefensible – mainstream journalism.

Here Steven suggests that all sane people would agree that Mainstream, top-down, professional journalism will continue to play a vital role in covering news events, and in shaping our interpretation of those events, as it should. [emphasis added ].

Well, it should NOT play that role because mainstream journalism’s commercial focus, though natural, is NOT healthy. In fact it’s tragic because the interpretations are so misguided and narrow. Blogs can help fix this, and they will.
I replied:

I think, therefore I’m insane?

Your first point – that professional journalism “should” play something like the powerful role it currently plays is as misguided as a Fox News analysis and simply absurd. Mainstream journalism stinks, and is getting worse. Blogs will help fix this deficiency, and hopefully will replace mainstream superficiality with in depth, smart coverage of complex events.

Although blogs are only beginning to challenge the absurd commercial sensibilities of mainstream journalism I have much higher hopes than you that blogger journalists will prevail over mainstream celebrity journalism which reaches new lows every year. (cf many great mainstream journalists who are impressive but stifled by forced brevity).

Mainstream journalism has fallen very far from reasoned analysis of current events. It no longer pays more than superficial attention to critical news events (e.g. “Oral rehydration therapy saves millions”, “Congo War”, “Global Child Welfare”, etc, etc.