2008 August

Aug 12 2008
0

Information and Evolution

Posted by | half baked ideas | No Comments

I have finally put up some notes, about what I have been thinking about for a very long time, concerning Information Theory and Evolution.

Specifically:

How systems self-emerge and self-configure for information exchange from 0 to 1 to n bits.

How these systems necessarily culminate in the complexity and diversity of living things as a result of rules governing information theory, where natural selection is a specific case of the laws governing noisy information exchange between finite sized systems.

If anyone else is interested in this topic or has any questions, the notes are here, and I’d be happy to hear from you.

Aug 08 2008
0

The Internet Olympics – at least for people in the US

Posted by | technology | No Comments

China is a long way from anywhere in the US, and even San Francisco, with its Chinese immigrant history and psychological proximity, is nearly 1000 miles farther from Beijing than London is (London – Beijing: 5060 miles, SF – Beijing 5900 miles).

This counterintuitive fact is a result of just how vast the Pacific is and it means that following the games live will be difficult due to the time zone difference. As a result, here in the US, to keep up with the games, the internet will play a bigger factor than ever before. The Official Google Blog has a first stab at a roundup of places to go.

Meanwhile, on Smashing Telly, we have a video clip history of previous Olympic opening ceremonies.

Aug 05 2008
0

The iPhone will Never be an Enterprise Device

Posted by | business | 2 Comments

The Register points to a Gartner report that suggest that the iPhone may not be an enterprise device because of poor battery life, among other things.

We do not need the Gartner report to nitpick about details, to know that the iPhone is not an enterprise product.

The iPhone is a wonderful, groundbreaking, beautifully designed product, just like the first Macintosh was.

Businesses do not buy groundbreaking, beautifully designed products that give the impression they might be spending too much money, just like they didn’t buy the Macintosh. They will buy a good enough, slightly crappy phone that has a keyboard – the Blackberry.

Aug 01 2008
0

Salesforce.com is worth more than General Motors

Posted by | business | No Comments

By quite a long margin: 25% more, in fact (Salesforce.com market cap: $7.5B, GM, just under $6B).

Other unlikely companies that are now worth more than GM: Ryan Air; Pitney Bowes; J C Penney; Autodesk; Bed Bath and Beyond. Even tech. train wreck, Sun Microsystems is worth 25% more. And in a case of a piece being worth more than the whole, automobile parts distributor, Genuine Parts Company, and dashboard GPS maker, Garmin, are each worth $500 million more than GM.

Use Google Finance to screen for companies worth more than GM.