"I did not tow your car"
AOL's Jonathan Miller told an amusing story of how, when he took over the company in the depths of the dot-com doldrums, he handled the resentment he found at various divisions of Time Warner, where employees and execs were disgruntled about how the AOL/Time merger had gone -- they felt they'd been snookered by AOL. He told them about having his car towed in Manhattan, and visiting the godforsaken place you go to get your car, and waiting in line forever, and getting angrier and angrier, and finally getting to the front of the line and seeing a sign that read: "The person here did not tow your car. They are here to help you get your car back. If you cooperate, you will get your car back sooner."
That's what he told the unhappy Time campers: "I did not tow your car."
Jumping to cognitative illusions
Below two excerpts from an interesting talk on Ockham's Razor.
Imagine a lady who is small, shy, neat, and interested in detail. Is this person more likely to be a politician, a farmer, or a librarian? Easy! It is highly likely you thought this person is a librarian. But stop and consider how many politicians, farmers, and librarians there are in the world! It is actually much more likely that this person is a farmer. You have 'jumped' to a probability conclusion and over-estimated the likelihood of a stereotypical librarian. But you are not alone. Only one person from among the few hundred to whom I have posed this problem, including senior students at high school and university, as well as numerous trained medical researchers, has rapidly given me the correct answers, together with the correct reason.Suppose there was a stabbing outside a nightclub. In court, the one eyewitness testifies that the assailant fled in a silver-coloured taxi. On the night of the offence, it is known that only 15% of taxis on the road were silver. Furthermore, when the crime scene is recreated, it is established that the witness is 80% accurate at picking silver from non-silver taxis. You are the judge. What is the probability that the taxi involved in the crime was silver? Initially, it might seem, given the eyewitness is 80% accurate, that the probability the taxi was silver, as claimed, is also 80%. But this ignores the error the witness makes when observing the much more common, non-silver taxis. In fact, to work out the correct probability, we need to invoke a theorem devised by the Reverend Thomas Bayes, published in 1763, two years after his death. This theorem allows probabilities to be calculated accurately on the basis of full knowledge of all initial possibilities. When this non-intuitive, but mathematically simple, theorem is applied, the true probability that the taxi at the crime was silver is found to be only 41%; less than a one in two chance. In the Australian tradition, you should therefore bet that the taxi at the crime was actually not silver. We jump to the wrong conclusion unless the Reverend Bayes' approach is applied.
ITSMF Congres 2006
Op 20 april 2006 werd het jaarlijkse congres van ITSMF gehouden.
Verschillende collega’s hebben een presentatie gehouden en ook onze hoogleraar van beheer, Philip Powell. Presentaties zijn te vinden op
http://www.best-practices-in-itsm.nl/20april.
Ook had ik een ontmoeting met Sharon Taylor, Chief Architect van het ITIL Refresh project (zie
http://www.itil.co.uk), die het laatste nieuws over de nieuwe versie van ITIL vertelde.
Can Open Source Stay Open?
“Tim O'Reilly says the title of this program is misleading. "The real question we want to ask and answer here is: What is the relationship of open source to this whole idea of Web 2.0." Thus begins a provocative Q&A with O'Reilly, Mitchell Baker, and Jonathan Schwartz.
The wide-ranging discussion covers how the collision between open source software and Web 2.0 is changing the economics of computer, software, and internet businesses. The decline of tight, centralized control over software and computing resources is producing a surge in innovation as new ideas are released, tested, and improved rapidly by the avid communities surrounding new web and desktop applications.”
Listen on:
http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail845.htmlJonathan Schwartz (Sun Microsystems) has one of the better business blogs,
http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan.
Mary Meeker 2005
"Mary Meeker's presentation looks at data points that help us understand what has happened in the internet industry within the last few years, and the most likely places for substantial growth in the next phase of this industry."
Listen to her on
http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail846.html while looking at the
50 supprtoing sheets on
http://www.morganstanley.com/institutional/techresearch (Internet Trends Presentation from Web 2.0 Conference)
The Internet of Things 2005
“In the future we may be able to find lost keys with a simple google search. Science fiction writer Bruce Sterling imagines how physical objects will be part of the internet as they become trackable in space and time. Bruce discusses the theoretical and technical challenges that we face as we try and think about and develop the Internet of Things. From Spimes to Thing Links to Blogjects, the terminology and verbal framing devices currently being used are pulled apart in this keynote address from the 2006 O'reilly Emerging Technology Conference.”
Listen on:
http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail717.html
Scott McNealy
Heard Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy speak in Nijkerk today.
Trends:
- Growth of users
- Collaboration
- Energy consumption (no roof space for heli’s in NYC, cooling)
Competition:
- IBM: you’ve got a mess, we’ve got engineers "Mankind versus IBM Global Services"
- MS: mainframe on your lap
- Sun: big, scaleable community data centers (to outfit the infra for the participation age)
Eliminate the digital divide (the IP-less) without torching the planet (not a ($100) Dell for everyone…)
Sharing
Monster in data center (many Bests of Breed)
Sheep (follow MS); 'contamination' from smallpox < computer virus
Capabilities:- High performance
- Scale-up
- Scale-out
OS options: Solaris or Windows (also Redhat but will SAP support if you modify OS?)
ILM: from create to cremate
Make, buy or rent the truck? Sun grid at $1 per cpu.hour; "and my grid is better than yours"
www.sun.com/aboutsun/media/presskits/networkcomputing05q1/mcnealy_keynote.pdf
Auto Pilot
Picked up my new company car on Monday. It's the first one for me with SatNav and already I'm fascinated by the way you get used to not having to think about where you're going. I wonder where this will lead to, assuming that many more manual - no, not manual, cognitive - functions will be automated. A bit like kids no longer being proficient in maths without the use of calculators, I suppose.
Male Nipple
Interesting title for a publication about something with no function, must try to remember it.
Them and us
"Them and us" - groups competing for resources and I supprose ultimately for happiness - remains one of the fundamental social drivers. What's changing is the question of identity, seeing as geographical demarkation is being replaced or at least diminished in significance by IT enabled communities. So who are "they" and who are "we"?
