“There is no such thing as collective intelligence. Independent knowledge always has to be synthesized by a “system” or a shared channel.” —Dave Tingling

“He multiplieth words without knowledge.” —Elihu, Job 35:16 (King James Version of the Bible)

“To teach means scarcely anything more than to show how things differ from one another in their different purposes, forms, and origins. …Therefore, he who differentiates well teaches well.” —John Amos Comenius

“You cannot enslave a mind that knows itself, that values itself, that understands itself.” —Wangari Maathai

“Even for the physicist the description in plain language will be a criterion of the degree of understanding that has been reached.” —Werner Heisenberg

“Mind-Machine Interaction Research Center” —Sign seen on a door at the University of Florida’s Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, circa 1999.

“Just fly your seat. Don’t worry…The rest of the airplane will follow.” —F. Carl Barnett (Owner and Aerobatics Instructor, Wings Jamaica Ltd.)

“Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things…” —Sir Isaac Newton

“If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can’t be done.” —Sir Peter Ustinov

“By painful experience we have learnt that rational thinking does not suffice to solve the problems of our social life. Penetrating research and keen scientific work have often had tragic implications for mankind, …creating the means for his own mass destruction. This, indeed, is a tragedy of overwhelming poignancy!” —Albert Einstein, A Message to Intellectuals, August 29, 1948

“Time longer than rope.” —Old Jamaican Proverb. Interpretation: patience (“time”) can prevail to resolve even the most stubborn problems, even those that force (“rope”) cannot conquer.

“Empty barrels make the most noise.” —Mom

“I am a dreamer who is mute, And the people are deaf.”

—Saʿdī Shīrāzī (Persian poet, 1184 ~1280)

“If you cannot—in the long run—tell everyone what you have been doing, your doing has been worthless.” —Erwin Schrödinger

It’s been almost a year since my last post. I’ve written dozens of articles since then, and have decided not to publish each one.

I’ve decided against blogging, as is commonly practiced. Blogging, like other phenomena I’ve watched evolve from Internet technologies, is IMHO largely a waste of human time (but perhaps not of computing resources).

Don’t get me wrong: I’m a shameless consumer of material served up “fresh” by the blogosphere. And yes, I know about “crowdsourcing” and the “tipping point” and all the business value that many people tout that blogging can bring. Not interested.

Valuable or interesting content doesn’t just spontaneously originate. Almost all useful content begins with (or is attributable to) an intelligence—generally a human being. I’m interested in connecting with the source of any information, not some facsimilie. I’m after inter-personal, real-time human interaction, preferably not asynchronous e-mail/post replies.

So instead of fueling Web noise claiming to “give back to the community”, and instead of blogging for some perceived benefit (or personal fulfillment—gasp), I want to turn this blog into something that will help you to get to know me—to get some sense of the person I really am.

My plan is to share quotes that have profoundly influenced my work, attitudes, and activities throughout years of pondering. After all, we are all born with almost no knowledge, and we adopt (and adapt to) that which we learn from others.

If you enjoy the quotes, and you might like to work with me, consider picking up the phone or dropping by my office for a chat. By the way, if you were curious about the assertion “perhaps not of computing resources” above, I’m afraid you’ll have to speak with me directly for clarification.

Today I had reason to contact the technical support service of a major Web service provider. Digital Rights Management (DRM) was my problem. I subscribe to the provider’s site for downloadable content. But today, I couldn’t download my historical material–stuff I’d already retrieved but lost (We’ll, it is here on a server somewhere—just easiest to d/l again).

I decided to use the ‘chat now’ feature of their support site. I got a gentleman whose native language was not English—you could tell from his grammatical constructs. He promised to resolve my issue in 2-3 hours (I had to ask how long it would take), and that I’d receive an e-mail notifying me when I could download my stuff again.

Half a day later (i.e. well over 3 hours passed), I decided to engage a chat with their support again. This time, another non-native English speaker named ‘Devanand’ shone.

At exactly 16:02:00 PM, EST, he promised: “Sure Dave, I will try to fix your issue as soon as possible.”

By 16:05:41 PM EST, ‘Devanand’ wrote back: “…I have regenerated most of your downloads and now you would be able to access (them). ”

So here are my best compliments to ‘Devanand,’ wherever he might be. He took about 5 minutes to do what someone else promised in 3 hours (and never actually delivered).

The moral of my story is not just about excellent customer service. My point is that the “time taken to resolve” any technical problem is a critical metric in distinguishing a good IT practitioner from a less competent one. Shorter solution (or resolution) times are the hallmark of a technologist who knows her game.

The Web should have a standard way to track and reward service professionals like Devanand, whose performace deserves metion only because there exists another person—presumably his peer—who promised me that e-mail in 2-3 hours, never to be heard from again.

Twitter is for followers. Nevermind “What are you doing?” Frankly, I’m busy and I don’t really care. Managers and business professionals need an information system that continuously answers the question: Who accomplished what? A by-product of such an information system might be “how long did it take her?”

I devised and built such an information management system. Waaay before twitter. Started work on it about 1993. I say Intranet for obvious reasons–one of which is security. Drop me a line if you’re interested in obtaining my solution.

This begins the only use I can think of for a blog—a shameless plugging medium to help you, a business owner or manager, to decide to choose my services. Pick up the phone and call me at 352-505-7885. To be continued….

EDIT: Ironically, the first several paragraphs of this article were silently removed by the platform being referred to, unnoticed by me. I’m leaving this statement here for its cautionary (and maybe humorous) value to the discerning reader.

…
Moving to Blogger was a tough decision (nevermind the technical ones). I’ve finally bitten the bullet, Or kicked the bucket, or something.

I’ve been“logging” my life and work using computers—recording much detail—long before the Web as we know it existed, and long before anyone ever dreamed it would be good idea to ‘blog’.

So I have in here my possession this copious data, aggregated from all the computers I’ve ever used since before Van Jacobson invented header compression. I journalled events, technical procedures, musings, and private thoughts. I never saw any reason to unleash this stuff upon the world at large. This stuff was my stuff—material intended for me, and me alone.

So I’m still deciding whether to put any of it up here. At the very least, I’d have to filter through all the meaningless (to you) private stuff and choose to publish only that which is approved for the general public.

Now that everyone and their pets are making a great deal more noise than ever in cyberspace, tweeting away, I figure I might as well publish something or other, And now is as good a time as any. I physically connected some of my hitherto private servers to the ‘net today.

Could there possibly be some kind of value to spending my time this way? We’ll find out soon enough. Maybe, like Lewis Carroll’s Red Queen, “we must run very fast in order to stand still.” But I think not—not if I can help it.

Thanks for reading this much.