John Sechrest wrote:
> I understand the notion of big complete visions that come quickly.
> I get them regular. And then it can take years to fill in the details
> on the vision to make it actually turn into something.
>
> There is a series of books from a company called lindsay technical books.
> It is a republishing of old technology books from around 1900. (01)
Are they free from copyright? Could that material be put on the web now? (02)
> It has books about how to build a metal show from stratch.
> Before 1910 , industry was still human scaled where small groups
> of people could still manufacture the basics.
>
> The books are a bunch of simple step by step recipe books.
> How to cast aluminum with a bucket, charcoal briques and a hairdrier.
>
> A Lot of the ideas you have below are not yet in the form of
> recipes. IE, there are many steps that have to be invented and
> put into practice. And a bunch of them have a lot of math to be done
> on them to make sure that they are valid.
>
> What does it take to pick one of those ideas and push it thru to
> the next level to make the details stand out. And then to the next
> level beyond that to get to the recipe we could put in a book
> and have someone else actually make one. (03)
Yes, this is the subunit pattern. (04)
It requires a place first of all, where people can come together and
collaborate on it. Then the kind of energy that has gone into individual
wikipedia pages but connected to practical efforts outside the
infosphere. My vision is a kind of wikipedia-type place (short of having
all the capabilities of DougE's tools) for 'recipe development' where
all such collaborations can monitor and interrelate with each other.
Where players can move on many different projects at once, to coordinate
or to move essential expertise around. www.recipedevelopment.org? (05)
There is no limitation on whether it does heavyweight technology
research recipes or cookery recipes, but its choice of tasks should
probably initially speak to the question Jack pointed out about "given
apparently dwindling resources, particularly energy resources, where
best should we be investing what remains?". But folks should be free to
login and create new recipe development projects. (06)
What I like about it being an interrelated corpus with a common
structure is that that could speak to those issues like "does making
this new thing actually require more energy than the old thing, short
term, though it makes a difference where the emissions can be
controlled" that could interplay between recipes just through common
pointers and commentary capability. And secondly, since coordination
across the information space will require efficient mapping tools there
should probably be just enough structure to allow multiple approaches to
mining without asking for miracles. (07)
On that second point, I don't think it is necessary to fill stuff
straight away with heavy markup like RDF with the view that that
improves data mining. I think that precludes evolution of forms and
hence is too totalitarian.
Often a sentence description over a piece of data, e.g. "Dave from
.www.d.com wrote this on 2005-09-01 when he was in a bad mood" is better. (08)
>
>
>
> "Peter P. Jones" <ppj@concept67.net> writes:
>
> % > What do you see as the tool that improves this?
>
> % I am not sure yet. Please indulge me while I backtrack to the 'Joe
> % Sixpack Saves the World' portal idea as a way of trying to spell out
> % what I meant by that in more detail. (Maybe I just have huge complete
> % visions too rapidly...)
> %
> % Let's begin with an example question (one that cropped up earlier):
> % "Can the refrigeration unit on a food transport lorry be powered by an
> % solar panel?"
> %
> % This is a product development question. So imagine a wiki page devoted
> % to taking that question from that point to something Joe Sixpack can put
> % together. I'm interested in creating a point where know-how is developed
> % and disseminated. Where we go from testing whether the solar power
> % output is enough; whether it can only step in when there is enough
> % sunlight; asking what sort of bridging electronics map to various
> % refrigeration unit types; what kind of brackets can fix the panel to the
> % truck unit safely; whether the brackets can be made out of papier-mache
> % from recycled newspapers, or old drinks cans;... Testing, gathering
> % data, and moving towards having a final set of instructions that any Joe
> % Sixpack anywhere in the world can use to fix a panel to a truck and have
> % it power a particular type of refrigeration unit.
> %
> % Now imagine that there are lots of those investigations going on in
> % parallel. Some that I thought of last night are (like the above) all on
> % the theme of energy reduction:
> % a) There are $5 solar lamps on the market.
> % - Can they be used in place of present domestic lighting?...[Lots of
> % figuring out, resulting in...] => How to fit them.
> % b) Street lighting - Can solar lights be hooked into the ordinary street
> % and motorway lighting systems to take some or all of the burden?
> % c) Office lighting - how much can we take off the grid with solar
> % systems there?
> % d) Refuelling air cars - Can a solar panel drive the fuelling of a
> % second reserve tank on an air car, so that the car can switch between
> % tanks and have effectively unlimited range?
> % e) Double curve solar concentrator sea water evaporation plant - Scale,
> % sighting, prototype designs, optimum temperature at focus point on water
> % surface, salt combustion by-product issues...
> % f) Solar powered telecomms and wireless systems. Ditto solar power unit
> % for PCs and open sourcing of the know-how to build these things...
> % g) Can our existing points of electric energy consumption run at a much
> % lower wattage? Which points can and which can't?
> % h) If student car designs in competitions can be made to do 110,000
> % miles to a gallon of petrol, what are the savings made on a mini-shopper
> % vehicle with half that mileage?
> %
> % A question that should hang over all of these should be, "Can Joe
> % Sixpack make and implement them with a minimum of resource requirements?"
> %
> % Other ideas that spring to mind are:
> % a) What is the cheapest, simplest effective printing technology?
> % b) If the rise in temperatures and humidities threatens our paper-based
> % stores of knowledge in libraries, and may threaten out network computing
> % systems, is there a way to store substantial volumes of information in a
> % glass block with a lens based reading point that a child could grasp
> % without instruction? Something without fancy text compression techniques
> % and able to survive extremes of temperature. What is the process by
> % which Joe Sixpack could create more of these blocks?
> %
> % And on and on... All speaking to core themes like:
> % > - How do you create energy from the sun to cost effectively
> % > Desalanate LARGE quantities of sea water
> % >
> % > - How do you create food management systems that allow you to
> % > use recycling water systems and local food supplies to create
> % > local green house food systems that will work independent
> % > of how much heat you have outside or not.
> % >
> % > - How do you create a transportantion system that will move
> % > people and materials with no use of fossil fuels and is
> % > sustainable independent of the world temperature.
> %
> % + (In the worst case scenario)
> % How do you survive? How do you bootstrap back from nothing to a decent
> % life as fast as possible?
> %
> % It is important that the development processes are within the same
> % linking and comment capability space so that redundancies can be
> % eliminated and cross-references created; ideas related, compared,
>morphed...
> %
> % However, one of the questions we have on the table right now is:
> % > What do you see as the tool that improves this?
> % This is a bootstrapping 'evaluate and improve it as we go' B/C-level
> % question, imho. So maybe we just have to pick a decent wiki tool and get
> % the ball rolling and see what evolves. We have to monitor both the
> % improvement of the product development process and tool improvements
> % over that.
> %
> % (I like the look of Hiki as a wiki tool - Ruby based, plugin
> % architecture, lots of cool features... but I haven't tested it yet. Or
> % maybe Jack's Nexist works are similar to what we need.)
> %
> % One extension feature that the above process doesn't cover is the
> % process of recruiting people to put things into action. So we need to
> % think about that in relation to product development, maybe having a
> % subprocess for each product where the organisation of person-power (like
> % flash-mobbing) in various parts of the world can be undertaken.
> %
> % Then maybe, when the process of generating ideas, processing them,
> % making changes to the world, has gained momentum, if we should need to
> % use the mass marketing technique to get more people to at least look at
> % it, then we do.
> %
> % Does that convey things better?
> %
> % --
> % Peter
> %
> %
> % John Sechrest wrote:
> % > "Peter P. Jones" <ppj@concept67.net> writes:
> % >
> % > % > But if you actually slog thru the niggley work of the details of
> % > % > economics, and form factor and efficiency and user testing... You
> % > % > actually get something that works a whole lot better and which has
> % > % > serious traction.
> % >
> % > % What is the tool that covers and accelerates that process?
> % > % What makes it a networked process of lots of those processes?
> % >
> % > % The networked process over those development processes is precisely
>the
> % > % tool (NIC system) I am after.
> % >
> % > Ok. At the moment, I think this work is ill-defined. Most people
> % > don't do it by intention and end up backing into it. Some companies
> % > like Microsoft have figured out how to take a
> % > research prototype and sell it as if it were a product and get
> % > the customer to pay directly for the improvement curve.
> % >
> % > Certainly, we are seeing tasktracking via tools like
> % > trac as a helpful process. And there are a lot of project management
> % > tools that are useful.
> % >
> % > What do you see as the tool that improves this?
> % >
> % >
> % >
> % >
> % >
> % >
> % >
> % >
> % >
> % > % Peter
> % > %
> % > % John Sechrest wrote:
> % > % > These days I am spending a lot of time on business development. How
> % > % > to take an idea and move it thru all the bits and turns from the
> % > % > idea to a $100M business.
> % > % >
> % > % > We see bundles of external money coming into universities to fund
>research.
> % > % > At OSU it is $250M or so. Each year.
> % > % >
> % > % > And yet, the side effect of businesses that come out of that work
>is
> % > % > relatively low.
> % > % >
> % > % > Part of the reason is the word "prototype".
> % > % >
> % > % > When a researcher has had an idea , done the basic research and
>then
> % > % > done extra work to get to a "prototype" of the process, which proves
> % > % > that it works, then they are done. They think this is just a
>hop,skip and
> % > % > a jump from having a business selling it. We will call this a
>research
> % > % > prototype. it demonstrates the idea. Often it is not a "product
>prototype",
> % > % > which is the process of reworking the research prototype into a
>product
> % > % > format and solving all the boring niggley problems of space, energy
>,
> % > % > battery life, form factor, user interface, etc.
> % > % >
> % > % > This is what R+D departments do at companies. They take a research
>prototype
> % > % > and move it to a product prototype. However, This is often not what
>is needed
> % > % > for making a business. Often this product prototype really is not
> % > % > manufacturable at a cost that is acceptable. And it is not really
> % > % > tested enough with the audience to be a good product. And so what
>you really
> % > % > need is a "production prototype". This has the next round of niggley
> % > % > issues like economics and user testing and so forth done.
> % > % >
> % > % > Venture capitalists really want to fund a business development AFTER
> % > % > the "production prototype" is done.
> % > % >
> % > % > Universities want to stop working on the project BEFORE the Research
> % > % > prototype is done.
> % > % >
> % > % > Hence a gap. A gap in understanding. A gap in vocabulary. And a big
> % > % > gap in funding.
> % > % >
> % > % > What I see peter doing is the pointing to the "research prototype"
> % > % > Build an early example of it and then "wing it"
> % > % >
> % > % > But if you actually slog thru the niggley work of the details of
> % > % > economics, and form factor and efficiency and user testing... You
>actually
> % > % > get something that works a whole lot better and which has serious
>traction.
> % > % >
> % > % > We have been at the "wish it would work phase for some time" , it
>is time
> % > % > for us to do the dirty hard work of moving the research prototype
>to
> % > % > a production system that has traction.....
> % > % >
> % > % >
> % > % >
> % > % >
> % > % >
> % > % >
> % > % > "Peter P. Jones" <ppj@concept67.net> writes:
> % > % >
> % > % > % Ok,
> % > % > % I was wondering if I am just a radically different kind of
>person, and
> % > % > % perhaps in this arena at this moment that is true.
> % > % > %
> % > % > % I see us looking at:
> % > % > % 1) an entirely new scenario
> % > % > % 2) a need to believe in human potential, because otherwise we
>definitely
> % > % > % shouldn't bother
> % > % > % 3) a need to move forward fast (agreeing with John in essence)
> % > % > % 4) a need to step off into uncharted territory and wing it (the
>point
> % > % > % John doesn't appear to be happy with)
> % > % > %
> % > % > % It has always seemed to me that the essence of bootstrapping is
>not a
> % > % > % bunch of birds sitting around poring over perfecting
>aerodynamics
> % > % > % equations to work out how to fly.
> % > % > %
> % > % > % I see us birds, I see wings, I see lots of poring over
>aerodynamics, and
> % > % > % I wonder about that.
> % > % > %
> % > % > % Imho, the very essence of the thing/feeling/trigger for people
>that we
> % > % > % need to tap into to make things happen has never been captured
>in an
> % > % > % equation. It has never, to my knowledge, been captured by
>hunters and
> % > % > % bottled. It tends to have gone when they get to where they
>thought it
> % > % > % ought to be. It [the magic] is not really in the tools, it seems
>to me.
> % > % > %
> % > % > % So when John poses all these questions about detail I'm wary of
>ruling
> % > % > % out futures by attempting to predict them so that they become
>dulled
> % > % > % before their time.
> % > % > %
> % > % > % --
> % > % > % Peter
> % > % > %
> % > % > %
> % > % > %
> % > % > %
> % > % > %
> % > % > % John Sechrest wrote:
> % > % > % > "Peter P. Jones" <ppj@concept67.net> writes:
> % > % > % >
> % > % > % > % John, Jack,
> % > % > % >
> % > % > % > % Are you folks typing without listening to yourselves?
> % > % > % >
> % > % > % > Yes, I am very specifically paying attention to it. I think
> % > % > % > that we have to get to details to understand things. And I
>think
> % > % > % > that things we have now and are already in place do not seem
>to be
> % > % > % > sufficient to actually move things. And therefore if we have
>things
> % > % > % > that are not currently working, that we need to do something
>different.
> % > % > % >
> % > % > % >
> % > % > % > % Half the questions John has posed that I have been
>ploughing away at
> % > % > % > % have already contained the answers John is now seeking
>again.
> % > % > % >
> % > % > % > If you think that, then I am not being clear enough. I am
>trying to
> % > % > % > push down to detail each of the items that it will take to
>make
> % > % > % > progress. And to find out what about what we have needs to be
>different
> % > % > % > to make progress.
> % > % > % >
> % > % > % >
> % > % > % > % And there's a hint of damning all souls in advance because
>of a few, and
> % > % > % > % because of presumptions about points of failure before
>starting. What if
> % > % > % > % those points don't fail? What if it turns out that you are
>the key
> % > % > % > % individual whose flip choice either saves or damns us all?
>What would
> % > % > % > % you choose?
> % > % > % >
> % > % > % > It is not the presumption of failure that I am pointing at.
>It is the
> % > % > % > idea of "and then a mircle occurs" that I am pointing at.
> % > % > % > IE, if we have a portal and we get all the right people
>together
> % > % > % > and they can link and create great discussions and they can
>find
> % > % > % > meaning in the choas of it, then Poof, we get a result.
> % > % > % >
> % > % > % > It is more than Open Hypertext document systems. It is more
> % > % > % > than marketing. It is more than web portals..... Why? Because
> % > % > % > we have all of those and we don't see traction.
> % > % > % >
> % > % > % >
> % > % > % > % Orkut is just a gathering place, it is not a purposeful
>activity place.
> % > % > % > % But it contains useful pointers.
> % > % > % >
> % > % > % > Great. Given Orkut is a useful pointer place, what actions
>should I take
> % > % > % > with it that will cause traction on the issue of
>siberia/methane and
> % > % > % > global warming and the comming consequences?
> % > % > % >
> % > % > % >
> % > % > % >
> % > % > % >
> % > % > % > % Jack said:
> % > % > % > % > The problem, as I see it, is that the ant theory
>requires a kind of
> % > % > % > % > extremely large scale highly distributed coordination
>system that
> % > % > % > % > humans seem to miss.
> % > % > % >
> % > % > % > % Yes, a networked improvement community system. Cf. the work
>of Douglas
> % > % > % > % Englebart.
> % > % > % >
> % > % > % > Ok. Having taken the Engelbart bootstrap class and working on
>the
> % > % > % > C community idea for a while, they do not seem to have
>traction after
> % > % > % > the events. Certainly improving how we do improving of
>specific
> % > % > % > processes is a good thing. But it lacks urgency and therefore
>always gets
> % > % > % > a short end of the stick in terms of attention, funding and
>resources.
> % > % > % >
> % > % > % > A primary task like adapting to climate change seems like an
>important
> % > % > % > "A Task" to attend to. With the "B task" of improving how we
>respond
> % > % > % > and the "C task of improving how we improve" can be done as
>well.
> % > % > % >
> % > % > % > But the money will go into the A task, because it is the
>motivator.
> % > % > % >
> % > % > % >
> % > % > % > % John has already outlined what the objectives fed into it
>should be.
> % > % > % >
> % > % > % > Thank you for the kind optimism. I perhaps pointed at a
>couple
> % > % > % > of the possible things to focus on. I am sure it is both
>incomplete
> % > % > % > and narrow. But it does serve as a starting point.
> % > % > % >
> % > % > % >
> % > % > % >
> % > % > % >
> % > % > % >
> % > % > % > -----
> % > % > % > John Sechrest . Helping people use
> % > % > % > . computers and the Internet
> % > % > % > . more effectively
> % > % > % > .
> % > % > % > . Internet:
>sechrest@peak.org
> % > % > % > .
> % > % > % > .
>http://www.peak.org/~sechrest
> % > % > % >
> % > % > %
> % > % > % --
> % > % > % This message is archived at:
> % > % > %
> % > % > %
>http://collab.blueoxen.net/forums/cgi-bin/mesg.cgi?a=yak&i=43174705.2020607@concept67.net
> % > % > %
> % > % >
> % > % > -----
> % > % > John Sechrest . Helping people use
> % > % > . computers and the Internet
> % > % > . more effectively
> % > % > .
> % > % > . Internet: sechrest@peak.org
> % > % > .
> % > % > .
>http://www.peak.org/~sechrest
> % > % >
> % > %
> % > % --
> % > % This message is archived at:
> % > %
> % > %
>http://collab.blueoxen.net/forums/cgi-bin/mesg.cgi?a=yak&i=4317694B.4080406@concept67.net
> % > %
> % >
> % > -----
> % > John Sechrest . Helping people use
> % > . computers and the Internet
> % > . more effectively
> % > .
> % > . Internet: sechrest@peak.org
> % > .
> % > .
>http://www.peak.org/~sechrest
> % >
> %
> % --
> % This message is archived at:
> %
> %
>http://collab.blueoxen.net/forums/cgi-bin/mesg.cgi?a=yak&i=43181807.1060604@concept67.net
> %
>
> -----
> John Sechrest . Helping people use
> . computers and the Internet
> . more effectively
> .
> . Internet: sechrest@peak.org
> .
> . http://www.peak.org/~sechrest
> (09)
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