A year ago today: reentering the workforce

One year ago today, I blogged about my new job with iET Solutions. It’s been a busy year, and we’ve done a lot: launched two brand new product lines; built a product management capability from the ground up; started hitting our release dates; even gotten ink in some fairly serious industry journals (check out this roundtable with our CEO).

I feel like I’ve grown a lot in the last year too. My writing on the blog may have fallen off, but my professional skills and experience have grown immeasurably, and I appreciate all of you who have stayed along for the ride.

Ignorance of the Law is no excuse: Thermodynamics part 2

It’s apparently Perpetual Motion Day today on the web. Following up my rambling about the Second Law of Thermodynamics and business models that claim to “create value,” I spotted the following two articles. Can you see the common theme?

  • CNet: Getting gas from trash. “The two by-products of from digester would be methane, a liquid fertilizer, and solid compost. Eten envisions selling each of the products wholesale…. Eten said he was inspired by William McDonough, a designer who co-authored a book called Cradle to Cradle, which argues that a product lifecycle can be designed with little, or even beneficial, impact on the natural environment.”
  • BBC: Natural light “to reinvent bulbs.” “Previous attempts to make OLEDs like this have largely failed to make an impact because traditional phosphorescent blue dyes are very short lived. The new polymer uses a fluorescent blue material instead which lasts much longer and uses less energy. The researchers believe that eventually this material could be 100% efficient, meaning it could be capable of converting all of the electricity to light, without the heat loss associated with traditional bulbs.”

Yes, folks, trying to violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics as a core part of your business plan is probably a bad idea. In the first case, it’s certainly laudable to try to do something about garbage production, but the question is: can selling methane, compost, and fertilizer produce enough money to offset transportation and holding costs? Probably if the raw material is free… but there’s no free ride in the world and I would expect waste management companies or the supermarkets providing the raw material to eat up any profit margins to be had from converting their wastes to usable products.

In the second case, the researchers have either been misquoted or neglected their thermodynamics education. Heat is always a byproduct of the translation from one form of energy to another, unless that translation does no useful work at all.

Bartering up: capitalism and the laws of thermodynamics

Great story today about a guy exploiting (in a positive way) the power of Craigslist, and conducting a series of barter exchanges that so far has started with a red paperclip and ended with a year’s free stay in a house in Phoenix.

Of course, any reader of This Old House Magazine knows that there are many old houses that are available for essentially free, provided you can move them or otherwise improve them. So theoretically Kyle MacDonald should have had his house a long time ago. But this is the rub about Craigslist: it’s not a perfect market, because not every buyer or seller is plugged into it.

The larger economic point that is missed by the article, and by the premise of MacDonald’s experiment, is that there is no way to overcome economic friction. Part of what MacDonald is doing in his “trades up” is exploiting private valuations of goods that are lower than his own private valuation, and thus apparently creating value in the trade. But this overlooks the value of MacDonald’s time and the opportunity cost that he incurs by spending time on this project. The other factor is the value contributed to the project by people like Annie Robbins who acts economically irrationally because she admires the anticonsumerist principle of the exchange, and by the snowmobile company that donates goods and travel in exchange for marketing publicity. In fact, that particular trade may well have destroyed traditional value somewhere along the way.

So here’s the larger economic question: are market exchanges in particular, and the market in general, subject to the laws of thermodynamics? Is it possible to have a trade that “creates value”? Or is what happens merely a shifting of value from one party to a different party with some inevitable loss of friction?

A lot of modern negotiation theory is based on the principle of the “win-win” where both parties at a table derive benefit from a trade. The question is: who loses? Does every win-win have an external party somewhere who is not represented at the table who is disadvantaged by the trade in some way?

These aren’t theoretical questions. A lot of the politics that surrounds business is based on the conflict between people who believe in win-win (or at least tout its value) and people who argue on behalf of the damaged external party. Think industry vs. environmentalists.

Friday Random 10: The Great and Not-So-Great edition

This week’s list has a repeat, the CYHSY track (which is included according to the rules of the meme), but the rest is the usual pleasant all-over-the-map assortment. Well, mostly pleasant: once the novelty of hearing Alex Chilton’s once-great Box Tops cover Blondie’s “Call Me” wears off, you’re left with a halfhearted cover that neither illuminates the original nor says anything good about the talents of the cover artist.

Fortunately the Dock Boggs and Blind Lemon Jefferson tracks kind of balance out that track. Happy Friday, y’all.

  1. Maria Callas, “O madre mia, nell’isola fatale” (La Giaconda)
  2. Spacek, “Eve” (Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) Soundtrack)
  3. Sufjan Stevens, “The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts” (Illinoise)
  4. Daniel Lanois, “Rockets” (Rockets)
  5. The Box Tops, “Call Me” (When Pigs Fly)
  6. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, “Is This Love?” (Clap Your Hands Say Yeah)
  7. Dock Boggs, “Harvey Logan” (Dock Boggs: His Folkways Years)
  8. Blind Lemon Jefferson, “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean” (Anthology of American Folk Music)
  9. Radiohead, “Subterranean Homesick Alien” (OK Computer)
  10. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, “The Curse of Millhaven” (Murder Ballads)

Happy belated birthday, Thomas Jefferson

On April 13, 1743, 263 years and one day ago, Thomas Jefferson was born. Rumor has it that it was several days later that a delegation from Fairfax County was the first to call the infant “Mr. Jefferson.”

I have made something of a semiannual practice of observing Mr. Jefferson’s birthday with an assortment of pithy quotes and other reflections (see 2005, 2003), but increasingly the part that strikes the most resonant chord for me is the Jefferson Muzzles awards, given annually on their namesake’s birthday to individuals or organizations who “who in the past year forgot or disregarded Mr. Jefferson’s admonition that freedom of speech ‘cannot be limited without being lost.’” This year there is a podcast of the award ceremony, along with thirteen lucky recipients, including President Bush for the secret wiretaps, the DOJ for abridging the privacy of virtually every web user, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin for proposing that the government take away our choice of viewing and listening material in the name of “decency,” and ten other deserving cases. It should be noted that the Muzzles are no merely liberal mouthpiece: students who heckled Ann Coulter’s speech slamming Cindy Sheehan at the University of Connecticut are awarded a Muzzle, as is a Florida school superintendant who apparently forced the resignation of a teacher for writing an anti-immigration letter to the newspaper.

There’s a Time and Place to Punctuate: the Mission of Burma Obliterati singles

Mission of Burma’s plan to do a slow leak to fans of the songs from their forthcoming The Obliterati—as one song a week for eight weeks, each song released on vinyl and CD—has been tripped up twice. First, the band was overwhelmed by demand and sold out of all 500 copies in two days. Second, production problems derailed the original plans to leak one song a week. Instead, the band shipped the CD portion of the limited edition, now called “There’s a Time and Place to Punctuate,” this week, with the vinyl version to follow. The CDs were waiting for me last night when I got home from the airport, so while I was stuck in traffic this morning I listened to them in the car.

The songs are tight as ever, maybe tighter; none of the eight clock in at more than five minutes, and only one breaks the four minute mark. The band continues to evolve their sound, too; while the wall of guitars, frantic tempos, earnest screaming vocals, and tape manipulation are all familiar from previous outings, they sound fresh here thanks in part to some strong melodic writing from Clint Conley and rhythmic and melodic experimentation from Roger Miller and Peter Prescott. The strongest track of the lot, Miller’s “Careening with Conviction,” rocks out like rocking out was just invented yesterday, and Conley’s set-closing “Nancy Reagan’s Head” pulses with dark wit and angular guitar work.

On top of all this, Mission of Burma have put up an official site for the forthcoming album (due next month) that features a front-and-center wiki for fans to post their own information about the band and the recording. It also features an on-by-default music player which will selectively release all eight songs from the set over the next few weeks, so you can get the full experience.

Flatland Boogie

When I got into town last night, I was thinking what a shame it was that I wasn’t here during SxSW and missed all the opportunities to rub elbows with the powerful and interesting. That was before Quentin Freakin’ Tarantino wandered into the taco joint on South Congress where we were having dinner (I had grilled quail with a shrimp enchilada, which needless to say was spectacular).

It was a fairly quiet night otherwise, wrapping up with a drink at the Intercontinental. But I definitely feel like I could come back here and have a good time. Preferably on a trip where I could get away and take in some live music….

Reasons it’s good to be a co-founder of Apple

Number one: free 65-watt power adapters. I think I speak for PowerBook owners everywhere when I say it’s too bad that this courtesy doesn’t extend to all PowerBook G3 and G4 owners; certainly my experience with the dreaded M7332 adapter suggests that many of us might have benefited, not just the Mighty Woz.

I don’t begrudge him his power adapters, though. Since every home computer that I’ve ever owned (//c, SE/30, 7200/90, Pismo, TiBook, MacBook Pro) and a few my friends had on which I learned computers (][e (and IIe platinum!), //gs, PowerBook 170) has benefited from his work (and in the case of my friend’s //gs, actually been signed by him!), he probably deserves free Apple hardware for life.

Baton Rouge, it’s Tuesday morning

No big travel events yesterday, fortunately. We flew to Baltimore, had a meeting in the Maryland suburbs, flew on to Memphis, caught a connection into Baton Rouge. All that took us until almost 9 am Central time. It’s amazing how what sounds like a relatively small amount of travel can really wear you down.

We did, however, arrive in time to check out Juban’s. Getting there was probably the most exciting travel of the day. I browsed to my blog on my phone to verify the name of the restaurant, then Googled it and found the phone number. As we were hopping on I-110, I called Juban’s, verified they were still open, and got directions. All was well and my colleagues were impressed—until we realized that I hadn’t got directions on which way to take I-10 when I-110 ended and we were winging our way across the Mississippi. We got turned around, found the restaurant (with some hesitation, as we drove down to the end of the strip mall that it sat in, and started to wonder if we had made a good choice), and stayed to close it down. I was pretty impressed—I had the Hallelujah Crab, which was pretty outstanding, and the smoked chicken, duck, and andouille gumbo, which was sublime.

Today: a few hours of work in the lobby of the hotel, an appointment downtown… then back on the plane to Austin.

Goin’ to Louisiana

I’ve got a business trip coming up this week, one of those three states in three days things. One of the days (and nights) will be spent in Baton Rouge, which I’m pretty excited about—both because I’ve never actually been to the Red Stick (though I did spend a few memorable days in New Orleans 14 years ago) and because I’m looking forward to contributing to the Louisiana economy while we’re there. I mean, with restaurants like Juban’s and Mike Anderson’s, I expect to be contributing rather a lot…

It’s a good thing that the next night is in San Antonio (where I haven’t been since the late ’90s) Austin or I would probably have a hard time tearing myself away.

Update: San Antonio? God only knows how that got stuck in my head but I’ve been saying it all day. Good thing I’m not flying the plane.

Friday Random 10: Why Can’t I Be Good edition

I’ll be out of town for the first three days of next week, and the work is piling up against that hulking wall in my schedule like sand on a seawall. Funny how most Fridays feel like that these days. The most frustrating thing about it is the feeling, in spite of GTD, that things are falling through the cracks, and that “to dos” are coming in faster than I can write them down—much less work the pile down.

Today’s Random 10:

  1. Violent Femmes, “Add It Up” (Add It Up (1981-1993))
  2. Lou Reed, “Why Can’t I Be Good” (Faraway So Close!)
  3. Sufjan Stevens, “Black Hawk War, or How To Demolish An Entire Civilization” (Illinoise)
  4. Bascom Lamar Lunsford, “I Wish I Was a Mole In The Ground” (Anthology of American Folk Music)
  5. Uncle Tupelo, “New Madrid” (Anodyne)
  6. Vladimir Ashkenazy, “La Mer, I. De l’aube à midi sur la mer” (Debussy: La Mer, Nocturnes)
  7. Gemma Hayes, “4:35 a.m.” (4:35 a.m. EP)
  8. Jody Reynolds, “Endless Sleep” (the Peel Box)
  9. Suzanne Vega, “World Before Columbus” (Nine Objects of Desire)
  10. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, “Is This Love?” (Clap Your Hands Say Yeah)

A long overdue hack: the CalTech cannon goes to MIT

brass rat on caltech cannon

Ever feel nostalgic for the good old days of MIT hacks, where devoted, slightly nutty students pulled off feats of engineering brilliance while evading the watchful eye of campus security? Well, mourn no more, Bunky, cause the MIT hackers are back with a vengeance. I think moving a Spanish-American War era cannon across the country through an inspired bit of social engineering qualifies as pretty impressive on its own, but adding the machined aluminum, gold plated Brass Rat (Brass Rat defined) to the cannon was absolutely inspired. Nice plaque too.

And as always the Slashdot commentary is helpful, for instance the note that the cannon belongs to a residential house at Caltech, not the university, and that “No one outside of Fleming House gives a rats ass about that cannon. (Actually, no one outside of Fleming House gives a rats ass about Fleming House),” is a masterpiece of humor, intracampus rivalry, and sour grapes all wrapped up in a brief comment.

And knowing that the cannon was previously stolen by CalTech neighbor Harvey Mudd, and that this theft occured on the 20th anniversary, and that the social engineering included a phony moving company called Howe & Ser (Howe Et Ser) Moving Company? Priceless.

Neko Case at the Roxy, April 5, 2006

What a great show. I’ve been on a Neko contact high all morning. It’s such a different experience to go to a small venue to see an artist who is genuine and unpretentious—plus has one of the biggest voices around.

Neko’s setlist was heavy on recent songs up front, with quite a few from her new album Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, and was rounded out by a few tracks from Blacklisted (including a superb “Deep Red Bells” and a haunting “I’ll Be Around”) and a handful of well chosen covers, including her version of “Wayfaring Stranger” (which appears on her live recording The Tigers Have Spoken) and a Buffy Ste. Marie cover whose title I didn’t quite catch. In between songs she and the band traded quips about life on the road (Neko: “I caught a whiff of myself just there and missed a chord. I don’t think I’ve ever smelled as bad in my whole life! I smell like … a salmon!”) and generally yucked it up onstage.

Points of improvement? Well, her band was competent and genuinely sparked in a few places, such as the encore numbers, but they’re no Calexico (with whose members Neko has cut the last few albums). An exception was the divine Kelly Hogan, a formidable singer in her own right, who backed up Neko on vocals. Another issue with the earlier part of the set was the nature of the songs on the new album. On record they feel like a driving collection of compressed vignettes that hang together wonderfully. On stage the songs felt short and detached from each other. The band was tight, maybe too tight—a little more room to play around with the structure of the songs and grow them a little would probably be a good thing.

But these are minor quibbles in what was ultimately a great evening. The opening act, Martha Wainright, was good too—quite funny, very salty, and another wonderful voice. Vocally she reminded me a little of Hope Sandoval, only with a broader range of high notes and with better pitch.

And that Neko contact high? I got to meet her after the show. As she signed my copy of her available-only-at-gigs Canadian Amp EP, I told her how much “Deep Red Bells” and Blacklisted in general had meant to me, and walked away happy as … a salmon, I suppose. She’s smaller in person than she looks on stage, but friendly and genuine even after playing a two hour set… and teching her own guitars on stage prior to the start of the show.

Other crap: snow snow snow, Neko, and thanks Tony

I was going to do a follow up to my 2003 post, “I’m a reasonable man, MacArthur, so I know this isn’t snow,” but was beaten to it by another Boston blogger. It’s been snowing here for about six hours already and the stuff was coming down in big postage-stamp-sized flakes at lunchtime. Guess it’s my fault: I put the snowblower away on Sunday.

Oh, and thanks to Tony Pierce for the link over on the BusBlog (check the left column, where I’m one of “tony’s specials” today).

Finally, I hope the snow lets up in time for the Neko Case show tonight. I’m not wearing boots to that show.