The Pursuit of a Life

I love this.  Presentation Tennis is a social experiment by SlideShare/Ethos 3 in “collaborative creativity”.  Users upload slides and create a single combined presentation on a given topic.

This kind of thing could never realistically be done pre-Internet.  It’s fun to see the creativity in the models, because for a lot of the internet-using population, the Internet is an extension of traditional ways of doing things (”Clicks and mortar”, anyone?).

Fellow tweep Connie Crosby contributed slide 11 to the presentation.  I encourage you to check it out!

I finished Charles Stross’ most recent novel, Halting State, last night.  This is the third Stross book I’ve read in a row, and this novel reinforces my admiration for his writing.

Halting State takes place in the very near future - about the year 2025 in a newly-independent Scotland.  It’s a policing/detective novel of sorts, with an introductory whodunit that the main characters try to solve as the novel progresses.  The scene of the crime?  A massive MMORPG run by a shadowy gaming firm based in Edinburgh.  Someone has hacked into the game and stolen a truckload of virtual-reality goods that can be sold for real cash on eBay.

Of course with Stross, this is just the beginning of a massive web of intersections and extrapolations.  I won’t give too much away here.

After having read this novel, I continue to see two general weaknesses in Stross:

1. His characterization is often fairly flat.
2. His endings are rushed and/or tangential.

Stross tries hard to flesh out his protagonists - Jack Reed and Elaine Barnaby - but he’s no Pynchon.  There’s one particular backstory with Reed that in particular is supposed to get us to see deeper into Reed’s motivations, but I felt it was almost tacked on as an afterthought.  And the denouement is really a birds’ nest of intertwining threads that he tries - and almost succeeds - in wrapping up neatly.  Almost.

So - enough with the criticisms.  I actually loved Halting State.  I would recommend it to any sci-fi fan.  It’s not quite the book that Accelerando is, but that’s saying a lot.  Accelerando is up there in my “book of the year” lists.

One final nitpick: I started reading this novel with the hopes that Stross would explore the term “halting state” as used near the end of Accelerando - that is, a mental or cognitive block that affects wetware.  This novel didn’t really get into AI much at all, so I was left wanting.

I just applied to participate in the GTAC 2008 conference, which is the “Google Test Automation Conference.”  It’s held in Seattle on October 23rd and 24th, 2008.

For a dyed-in-the-wool TDDer like me, this conference should have a lot of relevance.  I’m very interested in general in the intersection between traditional development and traditional QA - I see the lines blurring more and more every year as Agile concepts take hold in traditional waterfall shops, and as the Web.Next crowd pushes agile further and further into the future.

I’m not sure what the approval process is for this conference, but I’ll let you know when I do!  Anyone else planning on going?  Would love to get in touch before or during the conference to share notes.

I ran into an interesting post here on the Tiger Blog that commented on the nPost startup event last week that I also attended.  I naturally tried to check out who wrote the post, but I got the internet version of the runaround - lots of about pages, but no info.

The author is apparently:

• A former Zillow employee
• Who is working on a stealth startup named Eggsprout
• and whose initials might be BMA

I don’t know about you, but it bugs me when I can’t figure out the person behind the post.  10 or 15 years ago, anonymity - in the form of handles, nicks, anonymizers, etc. — were all the rage, but the internet has matured enough that anonymous posts / comments are now the exception, rather than the norm, among polite company.

Over on FriendFeed, Robert Scoble’s #1 change request for the internet is No Anonymity.  I like to poke fun at Robert, but I admire him a lot and I think he’s right on with this one - with one important caveat.  And that is - if you’re in a dissident / whistleblower situation where you are in jeapordy in real life, then by all means I think that anonymity is crucial.

However, the run-of-the-mill “I went to this networking event and met up  with a lot of cool people” posts deserve a name and a face.

I think it’s ironic that BMA has authored a post titled 10 great startup tips.  Tip #9? Be transparent.

What do you think about anonymity?

Steven Hodson has a post up on Mashable! where he whines that “Twitter is not microblogging”. Before I get into my own thoughts on the topic, I have an initial question:

Who the Hell Cares?

Steven’s apparently pissed that hardworking OBs (Original Bloggers) aren’t getting the respect that they used to, what with the upstarts like Twitter and Tumblr and Plurk infringing on the blogging turf.

I just have one thing to say: for shit’s sake. Get off your high horse already.

Now, as to the question of where Twitter fits in the new evolution of blogging: Twitter and its lifestreaming brethren are definitely blogging tools, if you are smart enough to see blogging in context, and not just as a collection of tools and techniques.  What are the key features of blogging in the historical sense?  Let me take a stab:

• Public
• Personal
• Direct
• Timely
• Subjective
• Worldwide

You tell me how Twitter doesn’t meet those criteria.

Somebody commented on Hodson’s article that his post must have been linkbait.  I doubt it - I just think he’s stuck in a mental trap and can’t - for the moment anyway - dig himself out of his current worldview.  The fact that he came in behind several dozen commenters and tried to turn this into a juvenile “Yay if you’re with me, Boo if you’re against me” doesn’t speak well for his near-term enlightenment.

If you’ve been around Twitter long enough, certain patterns start to emerge. People start to develop tweeting habits, and for better or worse, those patterns tend to stay fairly stable, at least in my experience.  Some people are composite creatures; others are definitely single-tracking.

Do you recognize any of these people?

1. GHOST: Starts Twittering, posts a handful of times, then disappears.
2. NERDCORE: Hopelessly geeky (and proud of it), writes tweets like this: “Linux.com states eDonkey as best P2P client on linux http://lin.cr/rf. But it was shutdown, wasn’t it? Can anyone confirm it?”
3. FLIRT: Writes a lot of tweets with the word “sexy” and “boobs” and “naked” (not necessarily in the same tweet).
4. WHORE: Shameless self-promoter of blog posts.  Has 10,000 followers.
5. WHORE IN TRAINING: Just like a WHORE, but sheepishly apologizes for it every now and then.  Wants 10,000 followers.
6. MR. GUILTY: Endless naughty-boy revelations about alcohol, gambling, or behaving badly.
7. ST. CRISPIN: Today is an opportunity! Carpe Diem! I can’t believe I’m lucky enough to be alive on THIS VERY DAY!
8. HIPSTER: Goes to all the cool social networking events and meets with Loic and Scoble and Guy every month.  Lets you know about it.
9. POLITICAL HARRIDAN: Sends 140-character rants about this or that politician or policy proposal.
10. INQUISTOR: 90% of their tweets are questions to their “audience”.
11. DILBERT: My office is dysfunctional and I sort of like it because I can tweet about it.
12. ZZZ: Sends tweets like “I’m on my 2nd cup of coffee” or “heading home”.

So, which are you? Which other tweeter archetypes am I missing?

UPDATE: Eric has apologized here.  That is a nice gesture and I think he means it.

Loving the video of intrepid KTLA newshound Eric Spillman getting called a jackass:

Maybe people will wake up and see that this type of thing isn’t reporting, it’s not analysis, it’s sensationalism and entertainment. Which I can already get on 99% of the other non-news programs on TV.

(h/t jowyang)

Last night I went to the Six Hour Startup event held at the Collins Pub in Seattle.  The premise behind 6HS is: start something up and get it launched in 6 hours, using the combined talents of a group of startup folks.

It was my first time attending a 6HS event, and I’ll definitely be back for more.  My key takeaways:

Don’t be afraid to come if your expertise is not in Python or Django.  What better way to learn than to start coding with experts sitting right across the table from you to help you get through the inevitable setup and configuration hurdles?  I’d never done any Python or Django before but was able to get up and running with very little pain, and I learned a ton.  Thanks, Brian, Justin, and Anders!

You don’t need to be a hardcore nerd to attend.  We had quite a few business/legal/marketing/PR folks attending last night, and everyone contributed.

You’ll learn more than you thought.  I was able to get the Yelp API calls working last night, after never having touched them before.

Community matters.   It’s so much better to do these types of things with other motivated people in the startup community than alone, or only with people you already know well.  Take a chance and stretch those social muscles a bit!

The side talks are very valuable.  Last night Wes Maldonado showed me the beta version of a new product that Pivotal Labs is working on called Pivotal Tracker, which is a very sexy-looking web based XP project planning system.  I feel like Pivotal Tracker may be just the thing I need to push Crowdify to the next level.

Roslyn Brewing Company makes a damned fine beer.

And, surprisingly, the Deschutes Black Butte XX is amazing as well.  I say surprisingly because I’m not normally a fan of dark beers.  This one was yummy.  Thanks Marina!

All in all - a great evening, and one I hope to repeat many times in the future.

Anytime you see someone tweet “I am so inspired by [...]” you should pay attention.  Closely.  Click the link.  You won’t be disappointed!

Tonight’s treasure: Where the Hell is Matt?

Thanks Calvin. I owe you one!

Habits are funny creatures.  Often times you don’t even know you have them until something happens to give you a little perspective.

Twice in the last week I’ve parked, and rather than jumping out as I normally do, I have actually stayed in the car for a few minutes - because I was so engrossed in an NPR report that I was listening to at the time.  I can’t remember the last time I actually stayed in a parked car for any length of time whatsoever.

This is of course a trivial example of a habit that I became aware of.  But speak to any person who found out they had cancer, or adopted a child, or went through a divorce, and you can quickly see that there are times when we have no choice but to abruptly and consciously assess our habits - and (perhaps) change them.

What do I take away from this?  Given the right circumstances, habits can change.  Maybe you have some bad habits - let’s call them suboptimal instead - and you might have been stuck in that rut forever.  You can change.  It just may take a good bit of observation and awareness first.

End with a Jedi prescription: Be mindful!