Rolandt

Iteration is the best approach to building a community.

You research what members might want, do your best to create that, and then use member feedback and your data to iteratively improve upon what you have.

But this doesn’t work well if you have a clear vision of the end result before you begin.

Two years ago, a client hired us to increase engagement in their community. They were trying to build a community on a forum-based platform. But, alas, few people were using it.

They had already done the research. They knew their audience wanted to chat on Twitter, read Medium posts, and participate in WhatsApp groups. The problem was they couldn’t let go of their vision – the same vision which had already cost them a lot of time and money.

We slowly encouraged them to support their audience on the channels they were already using. We put together a simple community experience. We created a hashtag to support the topic, used Medium (and advocates) to create and share news and information with the community. Then we invited top participants to three private WhatsApp groups to collaborate on deeper issues.

The forum never took off, but everything else did. The community is highly active, the feedback is useful, and the WhatsApp groups are still going strong.

The vision you have and the vision your members have might be very different. Be prepared to change your vision (or, better, begin without a vision of what the final community might look like).

Ich habe mir jetzt Dutzende von Headsets mit aktiver Geräuschunterdrückung angesehen und am Ende sind drei übrig geblieben, die ich dauernd benutze. Ich bevorzuge das Over-Ear Design, bei dem die Ohren in einem Kissen eingebettet sind, das sich am Kopf abstützt. Das finde ich angenehmer als Kissen, die auf die Ohren drücken (On-Ear) oder Ohrstöpsel (In-Ear).

Von links nach rechts:

• Jabra Evolve2 85 ist das mit Abstand leistungsfähigste Headset. Es kommt mit einem kleinen USB-Adapter für Mac oder PC und sorgt so für eine perfekte Unterstützung von Videokonferenzen oder Softphones. Ein versenkbarer Mikrofonarm sorgt für eine gute Verständlichkeit der eigenen Stimme auch in widrigen Umgebungen. Das Headset wird über Drück- und Schiebeschalter gesteuert, was nach ein wenig Einarbeitung blind und sicher funktioniert. Die Akkulaufzeit von bis zu 37 Stunden ist außerordentlich. Die Jabra Evolve2-Reihe passt gut zu iPhones, weil sie neben dem SBC-Codec auch AAC unterstützt.
• Shure AONIC 50 ist das am besten klingende ANC-Headset, das ich je benutzt habe. Absolut neutral klingend, mit kräftigen 50mm-Treibern, legt es schonungslos schlechte Aufnahmen bloß. Mit diesem Headset hört man Feinheiten, die man vorher nie wahrgenommen hat. Das Headset ist perfekt für zu Hause, aber eignet sich weniger zum Reisen, weil es sich nicht klein macht. Das Hardcase ist beinahe doppelt so groß wie das des Jabra Evolve2. Das Shure unterstützt neben dem SBC-Codec auch aptX, aptX HD, aptX Low Latency Audio, Sony LDAC und AAC.
• Surface Headphones 2 ist das für mich sympathischste Headset. Sehr sauberes Design mit nur zwei Knöpfen, zwei Touchfeldern und zwei Drehrädern. Die Regelung von ANC und Lautstärke über die beiden Drehräder ist vorbildlich. Es gibt kein anderes Headset, was sich so elegant bedienen lässt. Das Surface Headphones 2 passt weniger gut zu iPhones, weil es neben SBC nur aptX, nicht aber AAC unterstützt.

Nicht in dieser Liste sind zwei andere hervorragende Headsets: Das Bose NC700 hat die stärkste Geräuschunterdrückung bei ordentlichem Klang und guter Telefonieverständlichkeit. Es ist zugleich das leichteste, schlankste und bequemste Over-Ear. Das preiswerte Jabra Elite 85h wurde vom Evolve2 85 nur durch den Mikrofonarm und den USB-Adapter verdrängt.

Die Apple AirPods Pro passen nicht in diese Aufzählung. Aber sie sind die für mich besten Allround-Ohrstöpsel für Apple-Geräte. Nicht umsonst sind AirPods die meistverkauften Kopfhörer überhaupt. Die AirPods Pro sind eine konsequente Weiterentwicklung, mit denen Apple noch viel vorhat. Im Herbst gibt es Spatial Sound (5.1 und 7.1) mit iOS und Apple TV.

mkalus shared this story from Fefes Blog.

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Trumps Telefon-Diplomatie ist ungefähr so kompetent, wie man sich das vorstellt.

Er wurde regelmäßig von einem fähigeren Gegenüber regelrecht vorgeführt, dass er dann seine gefühlt schwächeren Gegenüber wie ein kleiner tumber Schulhof-Bully beschimpft hat. Wenig überraschend waren es die Frauen, an denen er seinen Frust dann abgearbeitet hat, insbesondere Theresa May und Angela Merkel.

Naja, Learning by Doing, denkt ihr euch jetzt vielleicht. Übung macht den Meister!

The sources said there was little evidence that the President became more skillful or competent in his telephone conversations with most heads of state over time. Rather, he continued to believe that he could either charm, jawbone or bully almost any foreign leader into capitulating to his will

Ja gut, aber was genau hat er denn am Telefon gemacht, was so blöde war? Na genau was ihr jetzt vermutet!

Trump incessantly boasted to his fellow heads of state, including Saudi Arabia's autocratic royal heir Mohammed bin Salman and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, about his own wealth, genius, "great" accomplishments as President, and the "idiocy" of his Oval Office predecessors, according to the sources.

OK aber wie hat sich denn die Merkel unter diesen Bedingungen geschlagen? Ganz gut:

Merkel remained calm and outwardly unruffled in the face of Trump's attacks —"like water off a duck's back," in the words of one source -- and she regularly countered his bluster with recitations of fact.

Merkel ist mit der CSU zusammen in einer Fraktion. Mit kompetenzfreien Blendern und Bullys hat die Erfahrung.

Der Artikel erwähnt namentlich Putin und Erdogan als Beispiele für Staatschefs, die Trump vorgeführt haben. Von Putin übertölpelt zu werden ist ja eine Sache, aber ... Erdogan!?!?

Amazon announced that it is planning to build a second fulfillment centre in Ottawa that is expected to open next year.

The company says the new 450,000 square-foot facility will create more than 1,000 full-time jobs in the city. It will be Amazon’s eighth facility in Ontario, and its 14th fulfillment centre in Canada.

Amazon says employees at the new centre will work alongside Amazon’s robotic technology to pick, pack and ship small items to customers. The items will include things like books, electronics and toys.

“Now more than ever, we must all work together to reopen our economy safely, get more people back to work, and chart a path to a strong recovery for our province,” said Ontario Premier Doug Ford, in a press release.

The online retailer is also planning five new delivery stations across Ontario in Whitby, Oakville, Cambridge, Brampton and Scarborough. The sites are expected to launch in 2020. Amazon says delivery stations “power the last mile” of Amazon’s order fulfillment process.

Packages are transported to delivery stations from Amazon fulfillment centres, and then loaded into vehicles for delivery to customers. Amazon says these new delivery stations are expected to create hundreds of permanent full-time and part-time jobs.

Source: Amazon 

The post Amazon to open second fulfillment centre in Ottawa in 2021 appeared first on MobileSyrup.

Phil Barker, Sharing and learning, Jun 30, 2020

Phil Barker reports, "back in May some new properties developed by LRMI were added to schema.org that simplify and expand how schema.org can be used to describe learning resources and educational events. The new properties are:

• teaches: The item being described is intended to help a person learn the competency or learning outcome defined by the referenced term.
• assesses: The item being described is intended to assess the competency or learning outcome defined by the referenced term."

This is part of a general trend toward defining resources in terms of competencies rather than in terms of traditional subjects or grades. Barker offers a longer description, with examples, of the new properties.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Salvatore Sanfilippo is stepping down as maintainer after eleven years, but will still sit on the Redis Labs advisory board–which is a good thing on many regards, since Redis now has a community (and a business) to support it and new governance, and Salvatore has too creative a mind to be tied down to a single thing.

Redis is one of my staple architecture components (and many people have no clue as to what it can really do besides “caching”), and is of the best pieces of tech I’ve ever used, so I’m really thankful for his work.

The post Oral-B’s new iO toothbrush is surprisingly impressive appeared first on MobileSyrup.

There are only a few Apple computers left that come with Intel processors, and most people shouldn’t buy them. In November 2020, Apple began making a big change to its Mac lineup. Although Macs have used processors from Intel since 2006, new Macs from here on out will feature Apple-designed chips like the ones in iPhones and iPads. Apple says that using its own “Apple silicon” chips will improve performance and battery life for Macs and provide less tangible benefits relating to security and privacy.

As of Spring 2022, Apple has dropped Intel from new models of the

• MacBook Air (13-inch)
• MacBook Pro (13-inch, 14-inch, 16-inch)
• Mac Mini
• iMac

That leaves the Mac Pro as the last Intel-only model, while Mac Minis are available with either processor. Apple started the transition in the Fall of 2020, and they stated an expectation that the full lineup would be changed over by the end of 2022.

During this transition period, Apple will support both Intel Macs and Apple silicon Macs with new features and software updates, before eventually dropping Intel Mac support in favor of focusing on newer, faster models with its own chips. With fewer Intel options available, most people will have their mind made up for them on which versions to choose. And only in a few specific cases should anyone consider seeking out the remaining Intel models.

John Danaher, Philosophical Disquisitions, Jun 30, 2020

"Imagine waking up one morning and finding out that you are no longer useful," says John Danaher. How would you feel? Probably not very happy. But in this paper (33 page PDF) Danaher argues that "technologically-induced human obsolescence can be welcomed if we can build a culture that embraces its advantages." What this means is redefinining what we mean by value and meaning in people. "Not all external demands and standards are true sources of value and meaning, and hence not all competitions to meet those demands are worthy of respect... a culture in which humans are not expected or encouraged or demanded to meet certain external standards, nor valued primarily for their ability to contribute economically or otherwise to society, but are instead freed from the yoke of external standards – might be the best way to cope with rapid technologically- induced change."

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

mkalus shared this story from wtyppod on Twitter.

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29. Juni 2020. Samsung bringt das Juli-Update auf Galaxy S20. Nokia 8.1 hat gerade das Juni-Update installiert. Nokia 7 Plus meint, das Mai-Update sei immer noch aktuell. Die gute Nachricht: Nokia hat monatliche Updates. Sie kommen einfach nur später.

Es liegt nicht an Android One sondern an den Ressourcen, die Hersteller für Updates bereitstellen.

A mini-split is an efficient, scalable way to add cooling or heating to specific rooms of a home.

Also known as ductless mini-split air conditioners and heaters, they consist of one or more wall, floor, or ceiling-mounted indoor units connected to an outdoor compressor.

They’re easier to install than a full ducted system, more efficient than window units or central HVAC, and they often make sense as a supplement to your existing heating and cooling equipment—giving a boost to an isolated area of your home.

Add in thermostat-like controls alongside smart-home integration and mini-splits start to sound pretty great.

But they aren’t cheap, with installation costs that can reach into the five figures, although the price can be offset somewhat by various rebates, tax credits, and other financial incentives.

Unlocking value with durable teams

Anna Shipman describes the FT's experience switching from project-based teams to "durable" teams - teams which own a specific area of the product. Lots of really smart organizational design thinking in this. I've seen how much of a difference it makes to have every inch of a complex system "owned" by a specific team. I also like how Anna uses the term "technical estate" to describe the entirety of the FT's systems.

Via @annashipman

“Revolutionary love is a well-spring of care, an awakening to the inherent dignity and beauty of others and the earth, a quieting of the ego, a way of moving through the world in relationship, asking: ‘What is your story? What is at stake? What is my part in your flourishing?’ Loving others, even our opponents, in this way has the power to sustain political, social and moral transformation. This is how love changes the world.”
— Valarie Kaur

Adrianna Tan @skinnylatte
My house smells like a chicken rice stall. Which tells me I’m on the right track...

Your phone’s flashlight app will work in a pinch, but if you’re spending serious time outside after sundown—eating an alfresco dinner, reading a book in your tent, throwing a beach bash—you need an outdoor light, or several.

After 12 hours of research and 35 hours of testing, we’ve found the best packable lights, tabletop lanterns, flameless candles, string lights, and path lights for all of your outdoor adventures.

You’re going to struggle to persuade people to add a new behavior to their day. Everyone thinks they’re busy.

Far better to figure out which behavior will visiting and participating in your community replace (and improve upon)?

Does it replace using search engines or asking colleagues for information?

Does it replace having separate calls and meetings?

Does it replace spending time on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and a dozen other social media platforms?

Does it replace calling customer support and filing tickets?

Does it replace chatting with small groups on WhatsApp?

Your community has to replace an existing, natural, behavior, and offer a benefit that is many times more valuable.

Do this deliberately. If the community replaces customer support then place the community where people would usually find customer support.

If it replaces browsing on YouTube then work with community members to curate the best videos on the topic embedded within your community. Update this each month.

This also lets you predict how often people will participate in your community.

For example, if you’re replacing calling customer support, your members will visit about as often as they call customer support. If you’re replacing social media, your members will visit as often as they visit social media.

I spent some time Saturday and Sunday playing around with the Reclaim Cloud, I am spending more and more time in this environment, and loving it. Couple of  notes here given I am prone to forget.

I moved the impressive Anth101 from a managed server into the cloud this weekend on a scalable WordPress instance. That site runs really lean now, so it is a perfect fit. This was not a clustered WordPress site, and so far it is using 3 cloudlets—which would roughly work out to $9 a month. A world of difference from managed hosting

After moving Anth101 I got the idea that perhaps this blog could be put on a similar non-clustered WordPress instance. The difference would be roughly 1/3 the number of resources/cloudlets (roughly 8 versus 24 being used in the clustered environment), which would translate into significant monthly savings. So, I gave it a shot put was running into issues with rsyncing between containers, which was a permissions key issue on my end. I documented it in the Reclaim community forums, but one thing I realized as a result is that you can mount file systems from another Network File System (NFS) container in a different environment, which is pretty slick. I tried that (you can see details in forum thread linked above) and was able to easily copy everything from the old wp-content directory over to the new instance after mounting it. So, this blog is running in a new WordPress environment on the Reclaim Cloud, and we’ll see if there is a noticeable difference in load and resources demands.

Finally, I already wrote about switching the database type on this blog and ds106 from MyISAM to InnoDB. There were no perceivable performance issues on this blog, but when I switched types for  ds106 (a WordPress Multisite instance) the database resource usage on that cluster went through the roof. I had time this weekend to try switching the database type back to MyISAM on ds106, and the resource usage dropped. So it was definitely an issue with the database type. The whole reason I did this in the first place was because the Galera Cluster that syncs the multiple databases in that environment only works with the InnoDB type. And if InnoDB is no longer running on ds106, I may have to switch it back to a non-clustered WordPress instance as well. There is a theme here, a clustered setup may be overkill for my modest web life. The real beauty of switching database types, however, was the cloning tool in Reclaim Cloud. I could take an entire snapshot of the ds106 stack, change database types, test that it worked, and then point DNS to watch load. It was super simple, and I could always switch back to the previous environment if need be during testing.

Anyway, it felt good to spend some time in the Clouds this weekend given our public beta starts Wednesday, I am starting to feel more and more comfortable in the environment, and I am ever more impressed with the options and flexibility it provides.

Using a spiral might not be the best way to encode data. But here's how to do it anyway. Just in case. Read More

Ich habe noch nie mit soviel Erwartung auf ein Headset gewartet wie auf dieses Jabra Evolve2 85. Es verspricht eine bisher einzigartige Kombination von Fähigkeiten: Geschlossener Over-Ear-Kopfhörer mit aktiver Geräuschunterdrückung und einem Mikrofonarm für perfekte Telefonie. Und dieser Mikrofonarm lässt sich bei Nichtbenutzung komplett in der rechten Ohrmuschel verstauen.

Es gibt verschiedene SKUs mit USB-A, USB-C, mit und ohne Teams-Zertifizierung, mit und ohne Dock. Ich habe die USB-A Variante mit Dock, P/N 28599-989-989. Am Headset ist stets eine USB-C-Buchse, aber den Link380 USB-Adapter für den PC gibt es als USB-A oder USB-C. Ich vermute, dass das mitgelieferte Ladekabel dann auch USB-C auf USB-C hat statt wie bei mir USB-A auf USB-C. Das Dock ist sehr schick, aber nicht notwendig, weil das Headset unfassbar lange mit einer Akkuladung durchhält: 37 Stunden!

Am meisten gespannt war ich auf den Mikrofonarm. Und ich bin nicht enttäuscht. Man kann ihn mit dem Finger leicht aus seiner Parkposition ziehen und herunterklappen. In der Nähe des Scharniers gibt es ein Gelenk, mit dem sich das Mikro bis an den Mund drehen lässt. Auf dem Arm ist ein Knopf, mit dem man das Mikrofon in Meetings bei Bedarf stumm schaltet.

Den eigentlichen Kopfhörer kenne ich gut, da er weitgehend dem Jabra Elite 85h entspricht, das zu meinen Lieblingsgeräten zählt. Nur die Bedienung hat sich komplett geändert. Die Steuerung der Telefonie geschieht über den zentralen Knopf auf dem rechten Ohr, aber für die Musiksteuerung und die Lautstärke gibt es drei weitere Knöpfe in Reichweite des rechten Daumens. Hier lehnt sich Jabra an die Bedienung des Evolve2 65 an. Von diesem Headset übernimmt es auch die Busylights, die jedem anderen Menschen in alle Richtung signalisieren, das gerade jemand telefoniert.

Die Einschaltemimik des Elite 85h durch Drehen der Hörmuscheln ersetzt das Evolve2 85 durch einen eigenen Einschalter hinter dem linken Ohr. Dieser Schiebeschalter iniitiert auch das Bluetooth Pairing. Wie beim Elite 85h wechselt man über einen Druckknopf hinter dem linken Ohr zwischen aktiver Geräuschunterdrückung, passiver Geräuschunterdrückung und Verstärkung der Umgebungsgeräusche. Wie stark man sich selbst in einem Gespräch hört, lässt sich über eine App einstellen.

Die Ausstattung mit Hardcase, Ladekabel und Audiokabel ist gleich. Der Bluetooth USB-Adapter Link380 hat zur Sicherung einen eigenen kleinen Klettverschluss. Dazu gibt es noch einen Adapter für die Mono-Buchsen in manchen Flugzeugsitzen.

Damit ist auch der Einsatzzweck klar. Das Evolve2 85 soll absolut alles können. Stereo-Headset für Musikgenuss, Konferenzheadset für Online-Meetings mit Zoom&Co, aktive und passive Geräuschunterdrückung durch Over-Ear-Design gekoppelt mit hybrider ANC-Software und zehn Mikrofonen, bestmögliche Mikrofonanordnung an einem Mikrofonarm. Ein Headset für alles. Für alles außer Sport.

Die gute Nachricht zum Schluss. Jabra listet das Headset deutlich über 500 Euro und das scheint mir viel zu viel. Aber bei Amazon finde ich eine Variante bereits für weniger als 340 Euro.

Adrianna Tan @skinnylatte
The poached chicken could’ve been better but it’s my first time! I’m very very pleased with my tea smoked half of the chicken

Adrianna Tan @skinnylatte
Well chicken rice helps with this: twitter.com/skinnylatte/st…

Karen K. Ho @karenkho
hey, are you doomscrolling? maybe you are just procrastinating going to sleep? I know, another Monday is almost… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

It’s easy to say “Break up Big Tech companies!” Depending how politics unfold, the thing might become possible, but figuring out the details will be hard. I spent the last sixteen years of my life working for Big Tech and have educated opinions on the subject. Today: Why and how we should break up Google.

Where’s the money?

Google’s published financials are annoyingly opaque. They break out a few segments but (unlike Amazon) only by revenue, there’s nothing about profitability. Still, the distribution is interesting. I collated the percentages back to Q1 2018:

	Ads on Google	Ads off Google	Ads on YouTube	Cloud	Other
2018 Q1	70.97%	14.84%	?	?	14.19%
2018 Q2	71.69%	14.77%	?	?	13.54%
2018 Q3	71.73%	14.58%	?	?	13.69%
2018 Q4	69.05%	14.32%	?	?	16.62%
2019 Q1	70.99%	13.81%	?	?	14.92%
2019 Q2	70.36%	13.66%	?	?	15.98%
2019 Q3	70.97%	13.15%	?	?	15.88%
2019 Q4	59.39%	13.10%	10.26%	5.68%	11.57%
2020 Q1	59.76%	12.68%	9.76%	6.83%	10.73%
2020 Q2	56.05%	12.37%	10.00%	7.89%	13.42%

Note that they started breaking out YouTube and Cloud last year; it looks like Cloud was previously hidden in “Other” and YouTube in “Ads on Google”. I wonder what else is hidden in there?

Why break it up?

There are specific problems; I list a few below. But here’s the big one: For many years, the astonishing torrent of money thrown off by Google’s Web-search monopoly has fueled invasions of multiple other segments, enabling Google to bat aside rivals who might have brought better experiences to billions of lives.

1. Google Apps and Google Maps are both huge presences in the tech economy. Are they paying for themselves, or are they using search advertising revenue as rocket fuel? Nobody outside Google knows.

   In particular, I’m curious about Gmail, which had 1.5B users in 2018. Some of those people see ads, but plenty don’t. So what’s going on there? It can’t be that cheap to run. Where’s the money?!

2. The maps business, with its reviews and ads, has a built-in monopolization risk that I wrote about in 2017. It needs to be peeled off so we can think about it. We definitely want reviews and ads on maps (“Where’s the nearest walk-in clinic open on Sunday with friendly staff?”), but the potential for destructive corruption is crazy high.

   Used to be, there were multiple competing map producers and some of them were governments. The notion of mapping being a public utility (Perhaps multinational? What a concept!) with competing ad vendors running on it doesn’t sound crazy to me.

3. The online advertising business has become a Facebook/Google duopoly which is destroying ad-supported publishing and thus intellectually impoverishing the whole population; not to mention putting a lot of fine journalists out of work. The best explanation I’ve ever read of how that works is Data Lords: The Real Story of Big Data, Facebook and the Future of News by Josh Marshall.

4. The world needs Google Cloud to be viable because it needs more than two public-cloud providers. It’s empirically possible for such a business to make lots of money; AWS does. GCloud needs to be ripped away from its corporate parent, just as AWS does, but for different reasons.

5. I note the pointed absence of Android in any of the financials. It’s deeply weird that the world’s most popular operating system has costs and revenues that nobody actually knows. Of course, the real reason Android exists is that Google needs mobile advertising not to become an Apple monopoly.

6. YouTube has become the visual voice of several generations and is too important to leave hidden inside an opaque conglomerate. Is it a money-spinner or strictly a traffic play? Nobody knows. What we do know is that people who try to make a living as YouTubers sure do complain a lot about arbitrary, ham-handed changes of monetization and content policy. Simultaneously, Google’s efforts to avoid promoting creeps and malefactors aren’t working very well.

What to do?

First, spin Advertising off into its own company and then enact aggressive privacy-protection and anti-tracking law. Start by doing away with 100% of third-party cookies, no exceptions. It’d probably be OK to leave the off-site advertising in that company.

But YouTube definitely has to be its own thing; it’s got no real synergy that I can detect with any other Google property.

I’m not even sure Android is a business. Its direct cost is a few buildings full of engineers. Its revenue is (indirectly) mobile ads, plus Play Store commissions, plus Pixel sales plus, uh, well nobody knows what kinds of backroom arrangements are in place with Samsung et al. Absent the mobile ads, I doubt it’s much of a money-maker. Maybe turn it into a foundation funded by a small levy on everyone who ships an Android phone… Other ideas?

What to do with Maps isn’t obvious to me. It’s probably a big-money business (but we don’t know). In combination with the reviews capability it should be a great advertising platform, but the opportunities for corruption are so huge I’m not sure any private business could be trusted to manage them. First step: Force Google to disclose the financials.

I think Google Cloud could probably make a go of it as an indie, if only as a vendor of infrastructure to all the other ex-Google properties. And I think the product is good, although they’re running third in the public-cloud race.

To increase Google Cloud’s chances, throw in the Apps business; Microsoft classifies their equivalent as Cloud and I don’t think that’s crazy. My Microsoft-leaning friends scoff at the G Apps, but they’re just wrong; with competent administration the apps offer a slick, fast, high-productivity office-automation experience.

Finally, as a standalone company, we could hope they’d break Google’s habit of suddenly killing products heavily depended-on by customers. You just can’t do that in the Enterprise space.

The politics

So there should be at least four Google-successor organizations, each with a chance for major success.

I think this would be pretty easy to sell to the public. To start with, what’s left of the world’s press would cheerlead, eager to get out from under the thumb of the Google/Facebook ad cartel. Legions of YouTubers would march in support as well.

Financially, I think Google’s whole is worth less than the sum of its parts. So a breakup might be a win for shareholders. This is a reasonable assumption if only because the fountain of money thrown off by Web-search advertising leaves a lot of room for laziness and mistakes in other sectors of the business.

Also, it’s quite likely the ex-Googles could come out ahead on the leadership front. Larry, Sergey, and the first wave of people they hired made brilliant moves in building Web search and then the advertising business. But the leadership seems to have lost some of that golden touch; fresh blood might really help.

When?

The best time would have been sometime around 2015. The second best…

A short, 10 minute time lapse looking at second narrows and the ship, train and car traffic passing under / over  / nearby it.

Music is from Chillhop Summer Essentials 2019

Chillhop Essentials Summer 2019 by Chillhop Music

Deutsche Welle: Philosoph Hösle: Trump zeigt “klassische Strategie eines Diktators”. “Für den Philosophen Vittorio Hösle steht das transatlantische Verhältnis an einem Scheideweg. Im Falle einer Wiederwahl von US-Präsident Trump hält er ein Auseinanderfallen für möglich.”

“Falls Trump als Präsident wiedergewählt wird…
…wird es um die Einheit des Westens noch viel schlimmer stehen als jetzt schon. Aus dem Bolton-Bericht wissen wir, dass Trump eigentlich aus der NATO austreten wollte. Und im Falle seiner Wiederwahl würde er jede weitere Gelegenheit nutzen, die europäischen Länder zu demütigen. In seinem Weltbild spielt Europa kaum eine Rolle. Er hat im Grunde das Weltbild eines Mobsters, eines Clanchefs, der die Welt in Einflusssphären einteilt nach dem Motto “Dieser Teil der Stadt ist für meine Drogenhändler, der andere ist für dich”. Ansonsten hat er keinerlei Verständnis für Verfassung oder Gewaltenteilung. Das verachtet er alles. Deshalb: Wenn er wiedergewählt wird, wird es noch düsterer werden.”

“Vittorio Hösle, am 25. Juni 1960 als Sohn einer italienischer Mutter und eines deutschen Vaters in Mailand geboren, lehrt seit rund 20 Jahren an der University of Notre Dame im US.Bundesstaat Indiana.Zuvor war er an Universitäten in Deutschland und der Schweiz tätig und leitete das Forschungsinstitut für Philosophie in Hannover. Hösle ist Beiratsmitglied im “Komitee für eine Demokratische UNO“. Papst Franziskus berief ihn 2013 in die Päpstliche Akademie der Sozialwissenschaften.”

I’ve been busy for a while thinking on how to respond to internet consultation on a bill that supposed to regulate homeschooling in the Netherlands. While I comb through the legalese, help to translate it in English, raise awareness about the implications of it and craft my own arguments for a response I get an uneasy feeling.

Which became clearer as I read Harold’s old post on cookie cutters and complexity:

Each organization’s situation is not only different, it’s changing. Case studies and best practices in business are like the arbitrary subjects in our schools. They’re easy to package but don’t transfer well into real life.

While I have many specific comments on the bill, my main uneasiness with it is existential. The practice of home education is complex and evolving. The system of measures to monitor and evaluate it as outlined by the bill is a cookie-cutter approach. It makes an attempt to adapt school inspection experiences to homeschooling without real understanding of how home education works, let alone the knowledge of best practices.

One of the things that are expected there is submitting a learning plan that is then evaluated by inspection. There are some basic requirements to it, but the details on most evaluation criteria are left blank. I expect they will be worked out later as protocols. From what the bill hints they are likely to rely on the use of government-specified targets and learning lines coupled with the hours of instruction needed to get there, on standardised testing or use of published methods and textbooks.

Since we have gone through the process of external evaluation a while ago, as part of Keurmerk thuisonderwijs certification, I wonder how easily a learning plan, describing the complex adaptive system of education in our family would fit in into a standard protocol.

A long time ago I helped to create a school that was set up to facilitate the integration of kids with disabilities into an educational system. In 1996 we participated in a festival of innovative education with a concept of the school, to which I was one of the main contributors. That was the first time when I came into contact with an idea that you can not evaluate something innovative against set criteria. Next to the concept document for their approach each of the participants had to provide their own set of evaluation criteria for the jury to use. It was a challenge to do, but I am proud of going through the process: our school got two awards, one of which was for the evaluation methodology.

The second experience was with my PhD. Once it became clear that the multidisciplinary mix of approaches and methods that I used would not fit into any existing evaluation schemas, I had to present a scientifically sound description of my own research methodology including evaluation criteria. Again, that was challenging and very rewarding work – I see doing that as the most important step in my development as an academic.

Both experiences taught me evaluating novel/complex/evolving systems against known and set criteria risks missing the essence of them. When you look through cookie-cutters you can only see cookies and totally miss the great chef or new gastronomic approach growing in front of your eyes.

Coming back to my today’s thinking of the bill I wonder how the part of evaluating the quality of homeschooling would work in practice. Citing Harold again, “to understand complex systems one must marinate in them, as John Seely Brown advocates“. I doubt that there are much interest and resources to understand the complexity of home education and to evaluate the quality it can deliver without cutting it dead into cookies.

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Have you heard of Switzerland’s novel zero star hotels? They are not what you think they are~they actually are starry hotels, a hotel room without walls, light switches or television, outside under the night sky.

You can take a look at Selina Berner’s experience sleeping in a zero hotel which has opened in neighbouring Liechtenstein. Spoiler-it rained, they had to cover the bed in plastic, and she retreated to a shed.

This concept originally started as an art project by two brothers Frank and Patrik Riklin and partner Daniel Charbonnier in the Appenzell region of Switzerland to take away the formality of a hotel and engage visitors directly with nature. Surprisingly even the original concept comes with a well trained butler that provides concierge services and brings “room service” to the zero star hotel.

And here’s what you get~a double bed suite in a pasture is $420 Canadian dollars a night with a welcome drink, breakfast and the butler, usually the local farmer. The farmer brings guests to the “suite” and provides local news and jokes.

“Our artistic perspective is to go in the other direction. There is freedom in the zero to define luxury anew,” Frank Riklin said of the minimalist project in the rolling hills of the Appenzell region near Sankt Gallen.”

Surprisingly the various zero star hotels have been quickly booked out. While the Covid pandemic has meant reservations are not yet being accepted for 2020, you can get on the waiting list here.

This video below describes the original  artistic concept of the zero star hotel and interviews the founders Frank and Patrik Riklin.

Image: Newlyswissed.com

During the Covid Crisis and the last three months of working from home, there’s been one surprising constant~traffic on roads has significantly lowered in volume but drivers are travelling much faster.

Last  May  Vancouver Island’s  Saanich Police impounded 16 vehicles for speeding in four weeks compared to 2 impounds in the same period last year. All were going more than 40 kilometres an hour over the posted speed limit. In April Coquitlam RCMP stopped 12 vehicle drivers for speeding in a two week period, including one driver that was travelling 50 kilometres an hour faster than the posted speed limit. The Province’s public safety minister Mike Farnsworth stated “It’s really quite shocking”.

I have been writing about my personal experience in Switzerland where speed is rigidly enforced by camera technology with some surprising results. Enforced slower speeds (the maximum travel speed is 120 km/h and that is rigidly enforced) has made Swiss motorways the safest according to the European Transport Safety Council.  In 2019 there were 187 road deaths in Switzerland with a population of 8.57 million. In 2018 in  British Columbia with a population of 5.071 million people there were 314 road fatalities.

Mario Canseco’s Research Co.  has been gauging attitudes to speed camera technology in  British Columbia and the results may surprise you. After following these trends for two years, Mario observes:

“In 2020, we continue to see a high level of support across the province for four different types of automated speed enforcement. Seven in 10 British Columbians (71%) approve of using fixed speed cameras. These devices stay in one location, measure speed as a vehicle passes and can be placed in school zones or on other roads. This year’s findings are remarkably consistent with what the province’s residents told us in the 2018 survey (71%) and in the 2019 poll (69%).”

And in terms of the reintroduction of intersection cameras which record high speeds through intersections 70% of  those surveyed supported them. The Province has has already issued over 20,000 tickets for this type of intersection speeding.

Mario Canseco gives a bit of the history around photo radar, which was cancelled by the BC Liberals in 2001. Twenty years later “large majorities of British Columbians who voted for the BC New Democratic Party (NDP) (76%), the BC Liberals (74%) and the BC Green Party (65%) in the 2017 provincial election are in favour of speed-on-green enforcement.”

Even more surprising is that 68% of residents in B.C. would like to see mobile speed cameras that can move to different locations and measure drivers’ speed on various sections of road.

The poll results were based upon online work between June 13 to 15 with 800 adults in the province.  Mario makes a point of saying “This is not a situation where pedestrians, bike riders and public transit users are banding together to make things tougher for drivers. Sizable majorities of the province’s residents, whether they are behind the wheel or not, have steadily endorsed a move towards automated speed enforcement for the past three years.”

Here’s a YouTube video from last July of  B.C.’s Public  Safety Minister Mike Farnsworth announcing the introduction of automated speed enforcement cameras in Vancouver.

Image: Postmedia