The Google thing is a hoot.
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Will it make computing power and data storage way cheaper and easier for millions of people, via cheap commodity-like Internet-hookup stations? Or am I not getting it?
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I totally don’t care if Google has more access to my stuff. They have a lot now. Others may freak about it, but most people will want convenience and cheapness.
I’m a big fan of redundancy. I have my most important files on a hard drive, flash drive and on the net so if anything goes awry there are back-ups. I already make most of my PPT presentations available for anyone to download at Slideshare though not the ones on Sliderocket.
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Personal data – I’m leery of putting all those eggs in one basket but if people want to give their whole lives to Google in a single account, their choice.
As always, Zen, a thought-provoking "Recommended Reading" post.
On Yaneer’s: I got to see some of the early work he referenced this paper from (his "Temporary Fame" piece), which helped me articulate two of my biggest concerns about the core USJFCOM J9 operational concepts of Effects-Based Operations (EBO) and Operational Net Assessment (ONA).
Both of these ideas, while interesting on the surface, suffered from little to no consideration of the time metric. Ironically, time is the easiest thing for us to measure (the accepted standard of distance is actually based on the distance light travels in a vacuum in a given amount of time). We can measure time to more than 12 orders of magnitude precision, while spatial distance is at best 10 orders of magnitude.
Our operational concepts of EBO and ONA paid scant attention to time — which is devastating to their intellectual foundation. ONA is useless to a decision maker if you can’t also tell the perishability of the data. And EBO is useless if you do not also assess the latency of the effects you took such pains to generate.
Again, a great set of posts. Glad to see Yaneer back on the Zen stage.
"I totally don’t care if Google has more access to my stuff."
I think this is more of a generational issue. At one time free-markets meant that markets were free to fail. Now it seems to mean that markets are free to give the consumer the lowest price at equal quality for goods and services. If, by giving a corporation our personal information, there is a way we can make that price lower, then may be we need to do this. Lowest price for the same quality of goods is always better, in my way of thinking. Of course there are some downsides to this and maybe one of them will be inovation. You’re giving the consumer what they want, but is it what they need, and who has the information to judge? Also in the end, everyone will have the same list, so I am not sure how "free" that is. But this does seem to be the way of the future, with all these "reward" cards and such, so it will work itself out eventually.
"We can measure time to more than 12 orders of magnitude precision, while spatial distance is at best 10 orders of magnitude." This must be why accuracy is time based and precision is distance based. Accuracy is usually what we seek and precision is what our engineers try to give us. Accuracy is less perishable than precision.
Lexington Green:
January 26th, 2009 at 11:35 pm
The Google thing is a hoot.
.
Will it make computing power and data storage way cheaper and easier for millions of people, via cheap commodity-like Internet-hookup stations? Or am I not getting it?
.
I totally don’t care if Google has more access to my stuff. They have a lot now. Others may freak about it, but most people will want convenience and cheapness.
zen:
January 27th, 2009 at 4:45 am
Hi Lex,
I’m a big fan of redundancy. I have my most important files on a hard drive, flash drive and on the net so if anything goes awry there are back-ups. I already make most of my PPT presentations available for anyone to download at Slideshare though not the ones on Sliderocket.
.
Personal data – I’m leery of putting all those eggs in one basket but if people want to give their whole lives to Google in a single account, their choice.
deichmans:
January 27th, 2009 at 6:06 am
As always, Zen, a thought-provoking "Recommended Reading" post.
On Yaneer’s: I got to see some of the early work he referenced this paper from (his "Temporary Fame" piece), which helped me articulate two of my biggest concerns about the core USJFCOM J9 operational concepts of Effects-Based Operations (EBO) and Operational Net Assessment (ONA).
Both of these ideas, while interesting on the surface, suffered from little to no consideration of the time metric. Ironically, time is the easiest thing for us to measure (the accepted standard of distance is actually based on the distance light travels in a vacuum in a given amount of time). We can measure time to more than 12 orders of magnitude precision, while spatial distance is at best 10 orders of magnitude.
Our operational concepts of EBO and ONA paid scant attention to time — which is devastating to their intellectual foundation. ONA is useless to a decision maker if you can’t also tell the perishability of the data. And EBO is useless if you do not also assess the latency of the effects you took such pains to generate.
Again, a great set of posts. Glad to see Yaneer back on the Zen stage.
Larry Dunbar:
January 31st, 2009 at 7:47 pm
"I totally don’t care if Google has more access to my stuff."
I think this is more of a generational issue. At one time free-markets meant that markets were free to fail. Now it seems to mean that markets are free to give the consumer the lowest price at equal quality for goods and services. If, by giving a corporation our personal information, there is a way we can make that price lower, then may be we need to do this. Lowest price for the same quality of goods is always better, in my way of thinking. Of course there are some downsides to this and maybe one of them will be inovation. You’re giving the consumer what they want, but is it what they need, and who has the information to judge? Also in the end, everyone will have the same list, so I am not sure how "free" that is. But this does seem to be the way of the future, with all these "reward" cards and such, so it will work itself out eventually.
"We can measure time to more than 12 orders of magnitude precision, while spatial distance is at best 10 orders of magnitude." This must be why accuracy is time based and precision is distance based. Accuracy is usually what we seek and precision is what our engineers try to give us. Accuracy is less perishable than precision.