Author Archives: Espen

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About Espen

For details, see www.espen.com.

Twitter explained

Twitter is one of those things I should know about but can’t be bothered to investigate deeply. Luckily, Tom Evslin has written up a short description.

Incidentally, I am officially on Twitter, my tag is http://www.twitter.com/espenandersen.

Jipi and the paranoid chip

I just stumbled across this wonderful little story by Neal Stephenson: Jipi and the paranoid chip. Just the thing to assign to my students for the discussion of whether computers can be smarter than human beings some day.

In typical Neal Stephenson fashion, it has some of the meandering storyline of a shaggy dog story, with witty details on technology and economics. But fun, especially with the little twist in the penultimate sentence…

A view from 2027

Cory Doctorow has a great short story called Other People’s Money in Forbes – a snapshot from a future where it pays to be small and do physical fabrication. I remain unconvinced that the market for artfully designed retro-statues created from discarded consumer electronics would scale as elegantly as the fabrication and design process would in this story. But the take on VCs and the term "Silly Valley" made me smile.

Better believe and be wrong than the opposite…

Stephen Fry (it looks like I will be pointing to every single one of his "blessays" analyzes global warming and basically says we should respond to the climate crisis even if we are not sure about whether it is true. This seems to me to be very much like the old saw about religion, that it is better to be mistakenly religious than mistakenly atheistic.

As for climate credentials, I am sorry to report that I drive an old car. But it is comfortable, and I think that what I pollute in terms of gas is made up for by the fact that I do not contribute to the deteriorating climate by driving up the demand for new cars, which are environmentally costly to produce.

So there.

Of course, there is the possibility that the debate itself is leading to global warming…. 

Profiling Astrology

Malcolm Gladwell exposes criminal profiling as astrology, seen as valuable because people remember the parts that were true and forget the parts that weren’t.

I have heard that Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Advisor to Jimmy Carter, used to say: "If you are going to predict, predict often." At some point, some of what you say will be right.

Shaken, not speared

Apparently, Bill Bryson’s latest book (published in the UK in September) is about Shakespeare. The Sunday Times had an essay on Shakespeare by Bryson in August. Looks like the introduction.

Chalk it up as a stocking stuffer… 

Falling dollar and Silicon Valley

Interesting discussion: What happens to Silicon Valley as the dollar exchange rate falls even further. According to Nat Torkington, there is enough money in SV already, so foreign capital influx will not change much. And given the cluster characteristics, outflow of talent will be slow. But the exit procedure – the IPO – might move from NYSE or NASDAQ to stock exchanges abroad.
I don’t know about the outflow – much of the innovation in SV has been due to a diaspora of talent from Asia and to a certain extent Europe. It is only natural that some of those people will want to move back home and bring a little bit of the left coast with them. The question is rather – what is the critical size of an innovation cluster like SV, and how important is the VC part of it? If the answer to both is “large”, the SV will maintain its dominance for a very long time.

Open position: Web designer/architect

Masterstudies logoI have the pleasure of serving on the board of a startup, Masterstudies.com. As the name implies, we are aiming to link potential students (from all over the world) with the universities they want to attend. The company has well known international partners, a rapidly populating database, a new and experienced CEO, a very international work environment, funds and (ahem) a very competent and motivated board.

Our web site is moving from concept to industrial-platform launch, and we need a full-time web designer/architect to help us in that process. Location Oslo, start ASAP, standard LAMP platform. We are looking for an experienced and enthusiastic person, excited about the opportunity to get into an exciting company at an early stage and influence its technical and business direction.

If you are interested or know someone who might be, take a look at this job announcement (PDF). Send a CV to Sven Thome, and if you have questions, contact either Sven (+47 975 37 262) or me (+47 4641 0452) directly.

Leopard review

Good review of Mac OS X 10.5, commonly known as Leopard, over at Ars Technica. I am still pondering a new laptop – if only Apple would make a Tablet version of their Macbook Pro, then the decision would be easy….

Text by numbers

Steven Berlin Johnson uses Amazon’s text statistics service to compare some of his (and mine) favorite authors. We are getting closer to Pandora-style book selection by the minute….

Cleaning up the computer

Nifty little program: Duplicate File Finder. Works like a charm, allows you to delete, and looks at content rather than name and time. Highly useful for a quick spin-through. And delightfully devoid of "user-friendly" bells and whistles. (Incidentally, set a minimum file size of at least 1000 bytes – or you will find out how many empty files your computer contains.)

A CASE of Oslo?

Microsoft is embarking on a multi-year strategy called "Oslo", offering a model-based approach to systems development.

To me it sounds a bit like what we used to call CASE tools, i.e., Computer Aided Software Engineering, only now done with SOA components. Upper CASE, come to think of it. I am all for it – it seems to me that for every new technology generation, from 3rd generation though 4th to OO and SOA, we need to rediscover ways to describe what we want to do and processes for converting description into implementation.

Plus ça change…

Corn flakes

Chris Anderson, editor of Wired, has had it with lazy PR hacks sending him all kinds of irrelevant junk and publishes his kill file on his blog for the rest of the world (including spammers) to pick up. Way to go!

The comments are really interesting, from the single-company photographer who finds himself blocked because he trusted a mailinglist company to Kevin Kelly chiming in as former editor of Wired (10 years ago, the spam still coming). I liked the idea of "tost" or perhaps better, "corn flakes" as a term for spam that is sent by literate but inconsiderate PR hacks. Cereal filters cannot be far behind….

(Via Boingboing).

Update: Chris follows up with a mea culpa when it comes to paper-based spam – that is, all those cards that come inside magazines. Not that he promises to stop the practice or anything… I wish The Economist would see the light here – they have gotten rid of the tear-out junk that destroys your copy, but retain that stupid little card that gets thrown out without at much as a glance.

Cognitive outsourcing

Daviu Brooks comments on how more and more of what he had to know now is available as a service.
Of course, there is an academic term for this as well. It is called “cognitive reapportionment” (there is an article somewhere, but I don’t have access to Google right now…). Or, as Brooks calls it, outsourcing your brain.

Garbage can

This is the best Dilbert cartoon I have ever seen, and that says something. Of course there is an academic name for this situation, and it is called a garbage can, from Cohen, M. D., J. G. March, et al. (1972). “A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice.” Administrative Science Quarterly 17(1).

Aw shucks, I’ll just post it:


Update 10 minutes later: Now it dawned on me – it is the garbage man saying this. Which leads me to think that Scott Adams has read a lot more organizational theory than he wants to let on.

Discussing monkeys

Daniel Drezner has had a brush with the realm of the extremely overextended analogy at a recent conference.

It seems to me that what he experienced was discussing monkeys discussing monkeys. Which would make the commenters to his blog (and me, for that matter) discussing monkeys discussing monkeys discussing monkeys….

(posted here since his comment script appears down) 

The empty luxury stores

This interesting review in Access Asia’s Weekly View on Asia may be the explanation for a phenomenon I had a hard time understanding: The last few times I have been in China, I have been surprised at the number of luxury brand stores, and also by the complete lack of customers in them.

Both in Beijing and Shanghai, there are real Armani, Gucci, Coach, and what have you stores, with prices equal to or even higher than in Scandinavia (and that is saying something.) Luxury stores sell fantasies, of course, and not products. But even so, I wondered how the stores in the shopping center of the basement of the World Trade Center in Beijing could survive – the only customers I could see were those following their kids to the indoor skating rink, having a drink or a meal, or buying toiletries at the one convenience store.

The tourists were nowhere to be seen – they go to the Pearl Market to match their bargaining wits with the seasoned pros selling Pashmina scarves and yes-Sir-we-will-change-that-Gucci-belt-buckle-for-a-Docle&Gabbana-one leather goods.

(Hat tip to Cory Doctorow, who was in Beijing at the same time as I was)

Back to nature

Stuart Buck tries running practically barefoot… Interesting observations, since we undoubtedly are not designed for running and landing hard on our heels. On the other hand, we aren’t designed for running on asphalt either.

As for the Five-Finger shoes, I wonder what the reaction would be if you wore them on the subway.