Blog of Random Thoughts and Pictures

Recent eRead: The Art of Innovation, IDEO, Palm and Project 2010

August 29th, 2010

It’s taken me a while to get through the book The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America’s Leading Design Firm, by Tom Kelley, but not because it’s a hard book to read, no it was because it was an eBook!

Well more to the point a Kindle eBook, being read on an iPod Touch. I found it really handy to purchase and download the book, and while obviously the reading format was optimised for the smaller screen I found it hard to figure out where exactly I was in the book. I mean it takes me a while to get into a book, but once I hit half way, I rip through the second half, but this just wasn’t the case with the eBook. The eBook gave me no sense of where I was in the book.

Also I found the iPod Touch to be a distraction, in that I read email, twitter, news feeds and surf the web on the device, and with the eBook I found myself reading less of the book and drifting off to do those other things. It makes me think that a dedicated eReader really might be a better option, but one without the email, twitter, news feeds and web surfing capabilities. Oh but whispersync was great, although I hate the idea of “the system” knowing exactly how, were and when I’m reading a book!

Anyway to the book itself.

Even 9 years after it’s creation, The Art of Innovation still holds some interesting insights into ways of looking at the creative design process. I found it particularly relevant when it came to talk about Palm and how IDEO helped in the transition from Palm III to Palm V. At the time (2000) I had a Palm IIIx I remember synchronising it to web pages via a desktop PC and a RS232 cable, said pages then read offline, especially when I was dragged to the shops, the little Palm IIIx was a lifesaver.

Palm IIIx

Palm IIIx

The book talks a little about the creative process in that design transition from the Palm III to Palm V, much of which rang true for me, as I transitioned to a Palm m500 I really noticed the difference. Actually I still have the m500 I must see if I can get anything for it on eBay.

Palm m500

Palm m500

The one thing I wanted to look into after reading the book was Project 2010. Given that it’s mentioned as a news piece on Business Week I wanted to check in and see some of the predictions. A link to Business Week: Welcome to 2010 can be found here.

As I read through the pages of this article I see predictions which include:
1. Entirely wireless world where broadband is ubiquitous,
2. Flexible LCDs.
3. Artificial Intelligence. In a decade, data will drown us. AI software will filter, prioritize, and communicate.
4. Holography. Moving 3-D images in real time.
5. PDA of the future will mean we say goodbye to money, keys, credit cards, beepers, and TV remotes.
6. Thumbprints will replace credit-card numbers etc…
7. Shades with built in screens
8. Computer displays and TV monitors are replaced by one lightweight, flat LCD panel that can be placed on a desk or hung on a wall.
9. Medial Mirror
10. Home server will manage a wireless, high-bandwidth home network.
11. Sports Watch monitors vital statistics, and analyzes performance.
12. Golf Buddy has GPS, cameras, and sensors to help your game
13. Lightweight moving map that displays your exact location in all terrains.
14. Compact printer
15. Smart Chair

I have to say wow, that’s not bad, flexible LCD nearly got here in 2010, but it looks like a number of big companies are just starting to pull out of ePaper business. I must say data has drowned us completely and there’s no A.I. helping me just yet, or should I say Google is doing this for us anyway. As for the 3-D prediction would the raft of 3-D movies in 2010 count here? Just saw Toy Story 3-D today, good show. And the thumbprints will replace credit-card numbers, maybe RFID is doing that today, and the final big one, can you see the Apple iPad in anyone of those predictions? I certainly can.

I’m quite impressed, but may be I’m being too optimistic in viewing these items, what do you think?

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-08-28

August 28th, 2010
  • 4-0 over the moon. COYS #
  • Today I did a 3.6km run. It took me 0:15:56 h. I've broken the 16 min barrier for the 1st time yipee. #

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RINA is networking and networking is IPC

August 24th, 2010

I’ve been involved in some research recently which has more than a passing interest in the networking concepts of RINA a clean slate Internet architecture which is proposing to resolve the challenges of today’s internet.
 PhotoCredit: jurvetson on Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson
The reason for the interest is that RINA has brought the networking challenge back to it’s basics, and bases itself on the concept that networking is just Inter Process Communication (IPC).
This is to say in a RINA world any two application processes in different systems are able to communicate using the services provided by a DIF. A DIF is nothing more than a number of cooperating application processes, with the DIF as the structural unit for organizational purposes, which in another way could be referred to as a ”layer”.
A DIF is different from the traditional definition of layer in the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) architecture. Firstly, a DIF does not perform a single function or small subset of pre-determined functions, but a coordinated set of policy managed functions to achieve the desired IPC service.
Secondly, the DIF naturally separates various concerns, including operation over different timescales (e.g. short -term data transfer and multiplexing vs. long-term connection management and access control issues). By the way DIFs are repeated, making RINA recursive.
This proposal of a new network architecture through RINA is currently being evaluated by its ability to address the shortcomings of the current Internet architecture and how it manages to provide solutions to these issues.
To paraphrase the researchers at Boston University (BU), RINA tackles the following set of challenges and provides an answer to most of them without extra effort but inherently:
Multihoming: By adopting and extending Saltzer’s proposal [1] for a naming and addressing schema, RINA names nodes as well as interfaces (Point of Attachment (PoA)). Thus, it is able to identify a node by its name and achieve multihoming.
Mobility: RINA simply sees this as a dynamic version of multihoming with controlled “link failures”, i.e., as a wireless signal becomes weak, the link “fails”.
Multicast: For RINA all addressing (anycast, multicast) can be treated as a set of addresses and a rule. The rule determines the number of members in a set that satisfy the rule.
Security: RINA addresses security in that a DIF provides a secure container. Users of the DIF only see the destination application name and a local handle. RINA does not use addresses nor well- known ports.
Policy Based Configuration: With RINA, policy and mechanism are separated. By using policies in conjunction with the common mechanisms, RINA can be configured to meet the different requirements of applications.
A detailed overview of RINA innovations and features can be found in the papers [2, 3, 4]. Tutorials and reference material are available from the Pouzin Society (PSOC) website.
[1]. J. H. Saltzer. On the naming and binding of network destinations. In Proceedings IFIP/TC6 International Symposium on Local Computer Networks, pages 311–317, April 19-21 1982.
[2] J. Day. How PNA Works: The Future of Networking [pdf].
[3] J. Day. Patterns in Network Architecture: A Return to Fundamentals (ISBN 0132252422), December 2007.
[3] J. Day, I. Matta, and K. Mattar. “Networking is IPC”: A guiding principle to a better internet [pdf]. In CoNEXT ’08: Proceedings of the 2008 ACM CoNEXT, pages 1–6. ACM, 2008.

A very happy birthday for Kate

August 23rd, 2010

Kate appears to have had a great day today, and why wouldn’t she it’s that special time of year again, her birthday. To my eyes she is really starting to grow up these days.

Although I just can’t get her way from that Nintendo.

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-08-21

August 21st, 2010

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Daniel a little messi in the making

August 14th, 2010

The little man Daniel is getting handie with a ball and kitted out in his Barca finest may be hes getting ready for the 2017/18 squad.

New Irish stadium is fantastic, the match not so fantastic

August 11th, 2010

So the first roar, the first national anthems, the first boring match for the new Landsdowne Road. This really was all about the stadium and not the match.

I was looking forward to the match between Ireland and Argentina, but this was no competitive international, this was a bore, as Argentina were pure class, and Ireland just had one tactic, to hoff the ball up front. Messi showed some flashes of magic, he was clearly head and shoulders above everyone else, with the only player showing any stature on the Ireland side was John OShea.

But enough about the game, the Stadium was just fantastic, and I could tell that the minute there was any good, cheering, singing it would reverberate around the ground very quickly, on a big match day Id say this would be awesome.

One little gripe, on important instances during the game the big screens would NOT show a replay, just a static screen with the new Irish sponsors logo on it. I know they have to do this, but still no replay, was a pain.

So heres to the new Lansdowne Road Mr. Tayto
a href=http://www.flickr.com/photos/miguelpdl/4887948573/ title=Come on Mister Tayto give us a bag of crisps by miguelpdl, on Flickrimg src=http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4139/4887948573_d9c35e7855.jpg width=374 height=500 alt=Come on Mister Tayto give us a bag of crisps //a

There’s always a first time, “Come on You Boys in Green”

August 8th, 2010

I could barely remember my first time to Lansdowne Road to watch Ireland play football, but I recently came across the ticket stub, and as with any physical item it helps bring some of the memories back.

It was the start of the Jackie Charlton era, his second match in charge and with the arrival of a South America team to Ireland (it was Uruguay), Dad took the chance to crank up the blue Fiat 127 and get it to drag us up to Dublin. I must say the sights and sounds are vague in my mind, it was cold day and so I didn’t enjoy it when we had to stop at the Dart gates just outside the ground to let a train pass. We headed for the West Upper Stand, which I’m sure meant we had to walk in under the Dart line again but anyway for me it was just concrete, grey dark cold concrete everywhere until we got into the stand and up, and up into the gods. I remember the overhead roof being quite long, and the seats, so wooden and old and grey.

The match, well Uruguay scored first, don’t remember the goal, but the feeling of deflation around the ground was definitely memorable.  The biggest excitement of the day was around the Irish goal for sure, which didn’t come too long after the Uruguay one. A penalty taken by the bearded Gerry Daly, scored with aplomb into the South Terrace goal. The cheer was massive, but then the memory starts to fade again as I try and think about whether there was a rendition of “Come on You Boys in Green” at that point, or not, there might have been but I could be wrong. After that the game must have been quite dull as I don’t remember a thing from it, and the match ended as a 1 -1 draw.

Anyway back to the present day and the reason for the post it’s not just a memory of the Old Landsdowne Road, but this week, I get to bring my Dad to the new Aviva Stadium for the first time, in some ways a return trip. The opponents South America again, but this time the mighty, Argentina, sans Maradonna which is a pity.

I’m definitely looking forward to this game, I believe it’s going to be a full house and with the stadium so compact if there is a rendition of “Come on You Boys in Green” I think it will be a good one.

Finally though I do have one small dilemma. You see many months after that match in ’86, Dad had one comment to make, “That fecker I bring him a 100 miles or more to see Uruguay play and he goes and cheers for Ireland!”.  On this return trip I may just make up for that.

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-08-07

August 7th, 2010
  • 36 years ago to this very day there was a Twin Towers Tightrope Walk by Phillipe Petit http://youtu.be/6ddpV1GvF7E woww #
  • Just finishing a Banana Bread Beer which funnily enough after ever burp gives an after taste of bananas. http://www.bananabreadbeer.co.uk #
  • Today I did a 4 km Run. This took me 0:16:36 h. Ah feck I'm going slower. #

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Recent Read: Let the Great World Spin

August 7th, 2010

Another book down, but in reading the front cover and back cover for this book Let the Great World Spin: A Novel by Colum McCann I hadn’t a clue what it was going to be about. It was a present, and not something I would have picked out but then in reading the first part “Those who saw him hushed” I thought hey this book is going to be about Philippe Petit, and the events around his tightrope walk between the Twin Towers on August 7th 1974 (wow 36 years ago today). Listen to this part of the book on YouTube it only takes 2 mins.

However, it isn’t about the tightrope walk, the book is a series of four short stories, each one elegant, dark and full of colourful and descriptive language of death, well not all about death but certainly linked to grief, but I wouldn’t take that way from the book it’s not too morbit, and I loved the way all the characters in the stories were connected, and in some cases without them even knowing it.

Anyway I enjoyed it, maybe you will to.