7/15/06: Podcast Update

• Philip Rosedale and David Alan Smith participated in a Intelligence Amplification Panel where they talked about Building the Metaverse. I selected to listen to this podcast predominantly because of Philip's association with Second Life. This was an interesting podcast, but does have content that would require access visual content that was in use when the podcast was recorded. One of the surprising things was the assertion by David that Java does not work the same way every where, thus his use of Smalltalk instead.
• Dileep George, Principal Architect at Numenta, talked about Understanding the Neocortex to Accelerate our Understanding of Intelligence. This was an excellent presentation. Dileep noted that the neocortex consists of a large sheath of neurons about 6 levels deep. Further, that the system is not highly differentiated as one might expect. In fact, he indicated that all of the cells essentially apply the same algorythms just to different stimuli. There is some modularization, but each unit functions much like other units at the celluar level. Again, very interesting and Dileep talks about it better than I. So, if you find this intriguing, go check it out.
• Steve Jurvetson and Blake Ross participated in Future Maker Panel during which that talked about Small, Smart, Open. Steve makes a good case for evolutionary processes leading to and hierarchial system with levels of abstraction that may not be so easy to figure out and replicate. Why? Because the evolve organically and are not necessarily efficient and eloquent. That doesn't mean they are NOT effective or easy to use. Very interesting idea. This was an extremely interesting podcast that I highly recommend.
• David Isenberg, Founder of isen.com, read a poem called Freedom To Connect. It was very Dr. Seuss like and villified the telecoms and clearly offers support for Net neutrality. I am not convinced the telecoms are the big evil as this poem and other Net neutrality backing content suggests. But, it was creative and entertaining.
• Dr. Greg Stock, CEO of Signum Biosciences, talks with Dr. Moira Gunn (BioTech Nation) about how machines are being used to aid biological functions. Dr. Stock does not anticipate large scale implantations for enhancement or cosmetic reasons given that one would need to upgrade frequently and that means invasion of the body. Thus, one would be shy to go there. Very interesting conversation.
• David Sifry, Founder and CEO of Technorati, talked about The State of the Blogosphere. This quick and interesting presentation mentions the incredible growth in the number of blogs, the increase in credibility for some blogs, and the abuses in the blogosphere.
• Al Gore, former Vice-President of the United States, talked about The Earth in the Balance. This was a faced-paced, fact-packed presentation about threats to the earth's climate and evidence that global warming as a result of human activity is real. Despite corporate and republican naysayers, I think Gore and the scientists I have seen on TV read or read about in other media are right in asserting that we are dangerously close to messing up the system. We need to do a better job of addressing global warming before it is too late.
• As briefly mentioned in a recent running entry, I listened to 3 podcasts about SCRUM. I have long been a fan of agile methods. It would be interesting to see if one could actually add 77 functions points in the same timeframe traditional processes result in 2 as suggested in these podcasts. That sounds unbelievable. But, I expect to checkout some of the principles and practices suggested in these podcasts and see if I can find a home for them in the processes I use at work. Here's a quote from the Agile Manifesto that highlights some of the basic differences between agile and traditional methods:
  

  ...we have come to value:
  
  Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
  Working software over comprehensive documentation
  Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
  Responding to change over following a plan
  
  That is, while there is value in the items on
  the right, we value the items on the left more.
  

  
  I found these 4 contractual provisions as discussed in the podcasts most compelling (copied from the transcripts for the podcasts):
  
  
  1. For any part of the requirements that the team hasn’t started working on yet, the customer is free to change them with anything of equal value.
  2. For any part of the requirements that the team hasn’t started working on yet, the customer is free to reprioritise them
  3. For any part of the work that has been delivered as increments already, the customer is free to ask the teams to implement them in addition to any call for implementations and they will be charged time and material to do so.
  4. Since the team has given the customer, as part of the proposal, the list of requirements of the project in a prioritised list by value, the customer can often see the system they want emerging and may feel satisfied before the entire set of requirements are developed. In this case they can cancel the contract at this point in time and take delivery of the system that is adequate to their needs and is only charged some penalty (such as 25% of unbilled revenues) to take care of any overhead that the team has absorbed by entering into the contract.
  
  I intend to keep learning more about SCRUM.