Eyes down for a full house ...

Well, I'm sure all the looney tunes are out there making predictions for what the LHC will find, just to annoy all those sensible people from the scientific community.

So I thought I'd get in on the act by making some completely pointless random guesses based upon absolutely nothing at all. Zero, zilch, nada ...

So here are my long shots:-

• ATLAS will discover that microscopic black holes are produced which will immediately decay by Bekenstein-Hawking radiation.
• The Higgs boson won't be found bringing into question the whole standard model.
• ATLAS will discover a new high energy particle that rapidly disappears out of "existence", leaving no artifacts.
• The LHCb will discover CP violation with anti-beauty quarks decay.
• Circumstantial evidence will be discovered for space-time having variable mass.

So why bother making nonsense predictions? Well, I'm hoping that others might take up the baton and improve them. In short, let's get the guessing game going just in case someone in the crowd already has the answers.

The worst that can happen, is it should help reinforce the view that knowing a bit of code doesn't gift a person with the ability to predict the inner workings of the universe.

A slight drizzle ...

There has been a lot of noise created recently about the downtime in GMail and the issues this has caused. Alan Patrick posts about how this is "pouring rain on the cloud computing parade".

Let's be clear, this is a minor hiccup compared to the potential black swan event that could occur. We desperately need some resolution on the issues of portability and interoperability between different providers for what are, after all, ubiquitous activities.

I've argued many times for the need for open sourced standards at different levels of the software stack as it moves from a product to a service based economy. These arguments are based upon the concepts and dangers caused by a lack of second sourcing. I've also argued that many technology vendors (except the most enlightened) are unlikely to shift willingly to a service based world without trying to maximise their position through lock-in.

In the past, the usual response I received was that this would limit innovation and competition. This has never been true, as innovation in the service world should be in operations and not product differentiation. Competition can be created by encouraging operational excellence whilst maintaining a standard reference model, hence my argument for AGPL as the ideal license. Whilst some agree with such a view, few are willing to accept that business consumers need to form associations to push vendors towards open sourced standards.

If you want interoperability and portability, you're almost certainly going to have to fight for it.

For those who haven't seen my talk from OSCON last year, I thought I'd re-post it here. It covers some of the basics.

Oscon talk, July 2007

Caught my eye ...

I stumbled across two things of huge interest to me, one new and one old.

First, the new news is that a £1.5 million grant has been awarded for investigation into a molecular manufacturing system for diamondoid products.

Secondly, well, just watch the video ...

Shoot ... foot .... ouch ....

If you have a bad online reputation caused by some big audience blogger dissing you, then use four recruitment consultants when looking for a new role rather than the usual three, as approx. 27% will reject you.

Since the cost of adding another executive search agency to your job hunting schedule is normally a few emails and maybe a telephone call (despite claims to the contrary, in my experience they rarely interview candidates and instead leave this to the client) then the additional cost is probably around £10-£20 (including your time at minimum wage).

However, the time and effort involved in generating a good online reputation is vast and so is the cost of losing it by becoming known as a blogger who likes to take pot shots at people, especially if those people can't or won't fight back.

Once you start hurling abuse online at someone who is unable to mount a fair defense, then this is just plain bullying. Any moral high ground is lost and any valid point is now insignificant.

In terms of the human impact, the blogosphere is more of a blogopond and we do tend to exaggerate how big the fish are.

A plea for sanity ...

There has recently been a lot of discussion about "evolutionary" concepts in the cloud computing world.

As an ex-geneticist who trained at Cambridge University, I would be very grateful if all those wishing to use evolutionary theory as part of a PR exercise would actually read something about the subject matter before mangling it.

I know it is tempting to simply combine half misunderstood concepts like "gene mutation" and "survival of the fittest" into your own grand unifying theory of evolution, but please try and do some background reading first. That's the annoying thing about science, it does require some hard graft and learning.

Whilst an in-depth understanding of a few computer based languages makes the learning of other computing languages a relatively trivial task, this logic does not hold for other systems. Just because I can make a reasonable hack with C++ & SQL, does not make me a master of the universe, a great philosopher and omniscient about all other fields.

It sometimes seems as though some within the IT industry can get a bit carried away with their own abilities ... cure for cancer, no problem, I can already create entire universes in smalltalk.

If you're going to start discussing a field, have the courtesy to read about the subject matter before making your pronouncements.

P.S. On the subject of smalltalk and virtual worlds, I think the work being done at the Croquet Consortium is worth a look.

Personal moments in technology ...

I thought I'd list a few publications which have had a significant impact in my way of thinking about technology :-

• Joseph Schumpeter (1942). Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy.
• Norbert Wiener (1948). Cybernetics: Or the Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine.
• Rogers, Everett M. (1962). Diffusion of Innovations.
• J.C. McVeigh (1984). Energy Around the World: An Introduction to Energy Studies : Global Resources, Needs, Utilization.
• Herbert A. Simon (1990). Reason in Human Affairs.
• Thomas Davenport (1993). Process Innovation: Reengineering Work Through Information Technology.
• Neal Stephenson (1996). The Diamond Age.
• Michael E. Porter (1996). Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance.
• Jared Diamond (1997). Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies.
• Christensen, Clayton M. (1997). The Innovator's Dilemma.
• Sunny Y. Auyang (1999). Foundations of Complex-system Theories.
• Eric S. Raymond (1999). The Cathedral & the Bazaar.
• Tim O'Reilly (1999). Hardware, Software and Infoware.
• Nicholas G. Carr (2004). Does IT Matter.
• Rudy Rucker (2004). Infinity and the Mind: The Science and Philosophy of the Infinite.
• Bruce Sterling (2005). Shaping Things.
• Tom Peters (2006). Re-Imagine!: Business Excellence in a Disruptive Age.
• Scott Berkun (2007). The Myths of Innovation.

The commoditisation of content

The transition from analogue to digital photos significantly changed the relationship between users and their photos. At one point, every picture taken had to be printed however with the advent of DSC (digital still cameras) you could suddenly take, delete and re-take as many photos as you liked. This change of activity changed our value relationship with the media, though the importance of the moment that was captured may remain unchanged.

The digitisation of content and the commoditisation of the means of mass communication through the internet has also significantly changed our value relationships with content based industries such as newspapers and music. In some cases we have started to lose the physical link to the media (i.e. a music CD) and our favourite songs have become little more than index entries on our ipod. Since digital music can be copied and shared at virtually no cost, we tend to value the experience (the song itself) as opposed to the medium. As more and more music becomes freely available, we seem to expect that experience to be free and we appear to be increasingly only willing to pay for "enhanced" experience, such as gigs themselves.

So why should more and more music become freely available? The medium itself (whether CD, LP, tape or other) used to act as a barrier to participation in the music industry due to the cost of manufacture and distribution. The commoditisation of the means of mass communication and the digitisation of content have simultaneously eroded both these barriers and the value we place on the medium. "Free" music is almost inevitable.

The same is increasingly true of journalism. Anyone can freely publish and distribute "news" and our value relationship becomes less about the medium (a newspaper) and more about the experience (whether this is trusted news). If the blogosphere eventually creates a reputation based network with timely, trusted and readable news then the old medium will decay. "Free" news is almost inevitable.

This is not necessarily a bad thing (unless you're a traditional journalist or musician) as it will provide new means for future budding artists to quickly reach a wider audience. Whilst it is more meritocratic, providing opportunity for those with ability, it will also drive the "price" to zero through competition. The path to free is almost inevitable for any content or knowledge which is suitable for digitisation and distribution to mass audiences. None of this is new, just take a look at wikipedia.

Radio 4 recently featured a discussion on the future of e-books. Now regardless of whether you like it or not, the e-book has the potential to change our value relationship with books. When combined with the further commoditisation of stories through digitisation and the erosion of value created by activities such as project gutenberg, we should see a mad dash to zero. Competition in the marketplace will eventually (but slowly) drive us in this direction as more and more budding authors release their content for free and seek revenue through other means. "Free" books is almost inevitable.

Well, that's the common story. However what is forgotten is that any story or song is an experience and the way to counter this drive towards zero is to create an experience far beyond simply reading or listening and to instantiate that experience into a physical form.

The "Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" is a futuristic example of this, an instantiated experience in physical form far beyond that of something which can be easily commoditised, as it is only relevant to the holder of the book.

To survive commoditisation and the drive towards zero, the experience has to become more uniquely adapted to the individual.

In my view, the future of music, books and news is brighter than ever .... just not in the form that we are used to. A new art form await us.

Caveat emptor ...

In a blatant attempt to add more wickedness into the world of aaS ("as a Service"), I thought I'd create the pointless terms of PaaS? and PaaSee (I hate the acronym wars anyway).

So here are my two new definitions:-

PaaS? (Product as a Service?): A PaaS? vendor, is a vendor who has not yet quite grasped that a utility-like service world is only suitable for those activities which are well defined and ubiquitous. As such, competition should be based on price and quality of service (service differentiation) rather than features (product differentiation). Without an ecosystem of vendors competing around the provision of an open sourced standard (i.e. an operational open sourced reference model of what it to be provided), then consumers will be faced with serious strategic concerns regarding second sourcing, security and competitive pricing which will in turn increase the barriers to adoption of this new technology. Due to this lack of understanding, PaaS? vendors attempt to bring their products into the service world with little or no thought regarding the questions of interoperability, portability and competitive ecosystems. PaaS? vendors tend to focus on:-

• The innovative benefits of their Product as a Service : the reality is that any componentisation of the IT stack will create such benefits.
• The competitive advantage that their Product as a Service brings : the reality is that as the activity in question is ubiquitous (i.e. suitable for utility-like service provision) then there will be little or no strategic value in the service as it is more of a cost of doing business.
• The ability to customise their Product as a Service: the reality is that customisation, new features and any activity which shifts away from a core reference model of the service will decrease interoperability and portability. The strategic gain for a consumer of customisation of a ubiquitous activity is likely to be far less than the strategic loss caused by a lack of second sourcing.

PaaS? vendors are obviously clueless and not to be trusted with your data.

PaaSee (Product as a Service - extremely evil): A PaaSee vendor is one who is well aware of the commoditisation of IT and the shift to services for ubiquitous activities and hence is actively attempting to bring lock-in into a service world in order to protect and maxmimise revenues until such time as they forced to change their behaviour. PaaSee vendors assume that business consumers of IT lack the strategic wit to see the game that is being played and they are quite willing to sell your grandmother to turn an extra buck. PaaSee vendors are definitely not to be trusted with your data.

So what should a budding adventurer in the world of cloud computing do? Simple, unless you have marketplace of service providers with interoperability and portability between them, then make sure you have a plan for a complete loss of service.

Videos ....

I've been somewhat tardy when it comes to publishing videos of my recent talks. Life is very busy at the moment with my new venture in the physical / digital world but I will get around to publishing them soon. Thanks for being patient.

The same is true for my book. I am not yet happy with all the ideas and since time is scarce it will take much longer than I originally anticipated.

Raging Clouds ....

There have been some interesting debates on cloud computing over the last few days. I thought I'd mention Tim O'Reilly's and Hugh MacLeod's posts.

I left a comment and I've summarised my thoughts here just in case my comments don't make it onto their blog posts (this happens quite often).

Comment =====

The question of large scale monopolies in what is today called "cloud computing" has been raised many times before in the past by Tim O'Reilly and others. There does exist a real danger here of network effects particularly through mechanisms such as aggregated services (i.e. market reports, preferential pricing or performance) along with the more obvious danger from the creation of a large proprietary technology based cloud.

None of this has been kept secret, it however has only just recently (in the last few years) become more popular. My reasoning, back in 2006, for the need to open source Zimki (a now defunct utility computing cloud) was based upon much earlier conversations that were raging about the dangers of a lack of portability & interoperability in a future utility computing world. None of this was new stuff then, it was just not widely known.

The move towards the cloud is almost inevitable (the business equivalent of the Red Queen Effect) due to cost efficiencies and speed of new service release. The use of open sourced standards (operational open source reference models of services to be provided) such as Eucalyptus (as Tim points out) is a way to prevent the formation of artificial markets, though as JP notes it does require concerted community action. Such action is in the interest of general business consumers for all the reasons of second sourcing.

As for the connection between cloud and services (as in service oriented design, architecture and "as a service") this is simply the shift of a number of business activities along the S-Curve of transformation from innovation to commoditisation. This is also allowing for greater componentisation and hence new innovations such as mashups etc. It is all connected by the same underling process and a tri-partite effect of participation, network effects and componentisation which is both accelerating innovation in the IT field and commoditising that which is ubiquitous. The pipeline of creative destruction has accelerated and this is what connects it all.

Finally, James Governor's comment that "Customers always vote with their feet, and they tend vote for something somewhat proprietary" whilst insightful is also somewhat unfair. It was clear from CloudCamp London that potential consumers are concerned about the issues of interoperability and portability and none thought that proprietary technology would resolve this issue. I feel compelled to defend those users, as the assertion that James puts forward is that the average CIO lacks the strategic wit of their counterparts in manufacturing.

This might be true, James might be right and maybe CIOs of today have become lazy on the easy pickings of IT. In such a case, the move by some companies over the last few years to put former heads of manufacturing in charge of IT and to bring in those skills honed through years of cut-throat commoditised activities and the strategic imperative of second sourcing may well turn out to be wise moves indeed. It would be unwise however to simply focus on the commoditisation of IT as both extremes of innovation and commoditisation need to managed simultaneously.

I remain hopeful, that those governing consumption of IT within business will realise the need to form consumer associations to push the industry towards open sourced standards for ubiquitous activities. What I cheekily called "Gang up now before the *aaS cloud gets you"

Time will tell.

We own your clouds ...

I've long argued that we need open sourced standards combined with compliance authorities using trademarks in order to ensure a functioning utility computing market.

However, companies trademarking generic terms like "cloud computing" is not that helpful. Thanks to James for spotting this.

You're a cat's best friend ....

Apparently, not many cat owners are aware of toxoplasmosis, a protozaon parasite that cats are the primary host for.

The parasites reproduces in the gut of the cat, the eggs are passed through the cat's faeces to other warm blooded mammals (such as rats, mice etc) which are then eaten by other cats hence completing the parasite's lifecycle.

Toxoplasmosis is known to change the behavior of some intermediary hosts. This includes slower reactions, attraction to cat urine and increased risk taking. This is all good news for the parasite as in the case of mice and rats this increases the likelihood of them being eaten by another cat and therefore continuing the parasite's lifecycle.

It's also worth noting that 30-60% of humans (such as cat owners) are infected with toxoplasmosis and those that are have an increased risk of traffic accidents.

In other words, if you find yourself strangely attracted to the smell of the litter tray and having more than your fair share of accidents, then maybe Mr Tiddles (or whatever name you call it) has been messing with your neurons.