BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Antimatter would 'give us the stars'
At the moment, we are far from understanding even the basics of antimatter production and containment. In the few experiments conducted so far, only a few thousand antimatter atoms have been made.
Faster and larger probes will be able to visit the planets
But the enormous energy that is released when matter and antimatter combine could, in principle, provide a far more efficient propulsion system.
For small unmanned probes, only grams of antimatter would be required.
"With small amounts of antimatter we would be able to conceive of sending robotic probes to the closest star system - Alpha Centauri - and getting data back within a human lifetime," says Les Johnson.
"If we get to the point where we will be making kilograms of antimatter then the stars are going to be ours."
Wow - anti-matter powers us to the stars. Not only do we live in the future. Fiction is becoming fact.
I should definitely blog about Sci Fi more :)
I blogged previously about trust and Jon Porcaro picked up on this.
Trust is a key issue here.
Another is silo thinking, which is a definite killer within the organisation. The way the company is organised leads inevitably towards this being the case. In fact every re-organisation seems to increase this as a problem. People always concentrate on what they perceive as priorities - good in of itself but what we fail to do is look at the wider picture. A good example: People within networks want to implement a new piece of kit. It saves them (and therefore the company) money. Its more efficient and effective than the current piece of kit. Great - lets install it.
Does it effect any other part of the business like for example, support, operations, heaven forbid customers?
Of course it does. No one bothers to think about it though, they just go ahead and do it, until someone outside their silo notices and brings it up.
And then there is Marketing. They come up with a fantastic new idea for a product or maybe its an enhancement. They go off and do their analysis which says how this will make us money or save us money, improve the customer experience and deliver shareholder value.
Have they talked to the development team, or the testers, or customer services or technical support, or again anyone outside of Marketing?
Some conclusions and I am open to debate here:
1) Process for delivering projects is poor and doesn't encourage cross business analysis
2) Culture is wrong. It encourages silo thinking and avoidance of process
3) Management is weak or perhaps unable to gain the understanding necessary. because they don't trust
I'm beginning to feel that the phrase ' Abandon Hope all who enter here!' was applied to the wrong place.
BBC NEWS | Technology | Fuel cell laptop promises long life
Japanese electronics giant NEC has unveiled a laptop computer that has a built-in fuel cell that can keep the machine running for far longer than battery-driven models.
Early versions of the fuel cell can keep a laptop going for five hours.
Within two years NEC said running times between fuel cell refills could be 40 hours or more
I've seen more about this elsewhere (although can't rememeber now!)
This could certainly add to the drive for people to use wireless hotspots. Currently I would be there for about 10 minutes before my battery gave up the ghost!
More applications for broadband though if you can get a device that is more power hungry to last longer especially when its mobile...
BBC NEWS | Technology | Polynesians get free wireless web
Ahhh! Niue - an island paradise with wireless broadband available for free! Plus they play rugby!
I wonder if I can persuade my wife to emigrate?
Read this today at John Porcaro's Weblog and it prompted some thinking.
The Secret is You
Diane is a co-worker who joined us several months ago from Nordstrom. She recently gave a speech to one of our OEM partners, giving away the Nordstrom's secret. I spoke with her today about the unbelievable reaction she got from the team she presented to. And after reading the post (June 24 2003), I think I understand why.
"I told them to stop wasting associates' time with talking about how great they as a company are and instead, spend a little bit of time knowing the associate's name and getting excited about how great *they* are. To make the moment about them...not about you. Because in the end, its the associate who is in front of the customer - not a big vendor flag. No one really cares about you - they don't care about Microsoft - and they shouldn't. They should care about why the products work in a person's life and how they work in a customer's life.
Period.
There are other great stories on Diane's blog too!
It made me consider a number of things about my behaviour and about how people behave within ntl.
One region regularly communicates stories like those on Diane's site of Associates going out of their way to own and solve customer problems. When I get chance maybe I will post one. Yet within the mythos of the company are all the bad and down right disgusting behaviours of other associates.
In a similar vein there are a number of managers who understand Diane's point about how to treat associates and realise it should be about them. However until relatively recently they were in the minority. Management was normally about how good the manager was and how lucky you were to work for them.
Things have changed. Things generally feel like they are getting better. BUT there are still examples of plain stupidity (see email stories below as a prime example).
One key area I see as missing is trust. Managers don't trust Associates. Associates don't trust themselves. Associates don't love customers (as per Nordstrom's view) and definitely don't trust them.
On a course last week even the trainer was pointing out the 'Cover your arse' culture. Perhaps this is why we don't get things right as a company? Although individuals do.
Wednesday, June 25, 2003
A Weblog Isn't...
A Weblog isn't a place where you will profit financially unless you are focused A-List blogger like Doc Searl, David Weinberger, Dave Winer, Anil Dash, Andrew Sullivan...etc. (Which is not to imply that all A-List bloggers profit financially from their blogging.)
A Weblog isn't a place where you will spend your time most effectively.
A Weblog isn't the place to find sustained happiness.
A Weblog isn't the place to become less self-centered.
A Weblog isn't the place to spend your community service time, if you believe in community service.
But as we said previously, a weblog is a great place for show and telling, soapboxing and footstooling.
I think I can do most of Show and tell and a certaon amount of footstooling - soapboxing I need to bite my tongue... and perhaps add some points to my weblog title...
PaidContent.org: June 25, 2003 Archives
One.Tel Launches Rival Multi-Media Subscription Service: The UK upstart One.Tel (though owned by a huge energy/telecom corporation), has launched what is perhaps the first UK-native multimedia subscription service, rivalling RealNetworks' RealOne service for UK. The new service, called One.Tel Premier Content, is priced at £6.99 a month, and will initially include access to MTV Live, The Tweenies, One.Tel Gaming, The Refresh Music Club, BBC News And Entertainment and Screensaver Movie trailers. More content will be added later...
One.Tel has also launched a separate online gaming service, priced at £2.99 per month, and users will also be offered the latest news and gaming related content.
Content is the way forward for ISPs / BSPs either on their own or in partnership e.g. BT and Yahoo. It will be interesting to see how the market i.e. you and me, respond to this. And how Broadband towers respond...(of course I know!)
I think it will be positive and as paidcontent says expect more of the same, and expect it to expect it to be a tough and interesting days ahead...
There are things that I know, there are things that I never thought I would know and there are things I never even knew existed. News group software is one of the latter. After 'volunteering' to look after this in work, it never ceases to amaze me about what I get involved in. From SPAM to Usenet, and next week server specs.
Looking forward to actually delivering some of these improvements in the next few months and seriously improving the life of customers. I know I would like the reliability back, even if I don't use News much.
am delighted to invite you to the launch of the All Party Internet Group’s (APIG) inquiry into Unsolicited Commercial Email (spam) in Portcullis House on 1st July 2003.
As I’m sure you are aware, spam e-mail is a growing menace. Recent figures reveal that 46 per cent of all emails sent are now spam, and that pornographic spam has increased by nearly 300 per cent since November 2001.
The purpose of APIG’s inquiry is to examine existing solutions for tackling unsolicited commercial e-mail, and formulate a series of recommendations on how both the government and industry should tackle this growing menace.
Do you think I can go? Will James get me an invite?
BBC NEWS | Technology | Toys bridge tech divide for children
Compare:
The results suggested that, despite a sophisticated vocabulary, the electronic companions were no substitute for human interaction.
to
Having a toy also seemed to increase the social interaction at the computer with the children talking to each other and helping each other more
Dr Lydia Plowman, University of Stirling
While I am most definitely a technophile and I guess my eldest child knows that, it most certainly isn't a substitute for human interaction.
Although I think some technology is better to talk to than some people :o
MarketingFix: Dial Up Users Would Pay Less for Broadband
It's true that if broadband cost less, more people would subscribe. That's true of anything. But will cable companies offer slower speeds for less money? Is that a smart business desision on their part? Will people notice whether they have 768K or 1.5MB? Will they care?
UK experience is that customers like tiers of service and tiers of price especially if you allow easy movement between the tiers. ntl (UK's largest Cable company) offer 3 - 150k (not really broadband)@ £17.99, 600k £24.99 and 1Mb £34.99 per month. Telewest (Uk's no 2) offer 512k, 1Mb and 2Mb.
The uptake has been tremendous because of this and has seen cable take the lead on Broadband against BT ADSL, which is incredible given the geographical footprint and monopolistic situation of the ex-national telco.
The numbers do stack up. People do notice the difference and they care but not that much.
Personally 600k is more than adequate for what I do online and unless the so called 'killer app' turns up (or I have to compete with my children for bandwidth) then why do most people need more?
You are Neo, from "The Matrix." You
display a perfect fusion of heroism and
compassion.
What Matrix Persona Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
Quick martial arts stance :) and asking of philosophical questions, Who am I? (me) why am I here? (good question) Is it all an illusion? (most probably)
Well I just upgrade to Version 2.64. I don't seem to have gotten it wrong, yet it still says 2.63 on the blog (though not on admin). Strange....
Edit: Ahh... that will be cacheing then...
BBC SPORT | Rugby Union | Internationals | England clinch historic victory
Okay so its nothing to do with Broadband... but it is to do with me. Possibly the greatest performance I have ever seen from an England side, and to do it in the Aussie's backyard, fantastic!
Roll on the world cup!
I wonder if there will be a streaming coverage or highlights package on the web?
As you can probably tell from my previous posts, I've been looking at SPAM quiet a lot recently, and not just in my email inbox.
Steve Linford (who runs Spamhaus Project) has been particularly helpful and so I thought I would just say "Thanks" here.
BBC NEWS | Technology | Wireless win for broadband
People unable to get conventional broadband connections could receive fast net access via wireless as three companies win the right to offer these services around the UK.
I'm not convinced that this is a viable model. Perhaps these new entrants can do this cheaply but it remains to be seen. will they be able to offer users value for money, especially compared to the fixed line services and if so will they be able to make a decent profit from the experience?
I hope so, competition is always good (except when it isn't!)
More on the delight that is the email problem. A colleague of mine wrote this:
Said the email: "As you may have noticed, ntlworld's email service has recently suffered some intermittent technical problems and some of our customers have been temporarily unable to retrieve their email. If you have suffered from any of these problems we'd like to offer you our sincere apologies and to explain a little more about our plan to fix this.
"Over the next few days we will be increasing the capacity of our email service and removing more of the large volume of unread emails that slows down the system.
"In particular, we will be changing the number of days we store unread email for to 90 days, in line with other leading ISPs. We will be making this change with effect from Monday 16th June.
"By making these changes and reducing the volume of unread emails stored on the service, we will significantly improve the quality of your email service," it said.
Some how I think he might and probably should have said this in a different way.
We have been surprised at the rate at which the email platofmr deteriorated. SPAM is a definite issue and perhaps the ongoing reorganisation didn't help.
There is now a great deal of focus on this and despite large numbers of people being "pissed off", I hope we can address it quickly.
Just off to deal with SPAM...
Silicon.com - NTL apologises and claims a fix for email woe
What a sorry state to be in! I sometimes wonder at the inadequacy of the mangement to let something get into the stat they get into. Its a shame because there are so many talented hardworking indivudals who run around like whilrygigs trying to make up for these type of issues.
It pains me just as much as any other customer (my home email goes down too). Strangely (well to me anyway) I get to work on the fixes too. Decreasing the mail storages times is one fix. Expect further work arond deleting unused accounts and the scourge of any email users SPAM. Taking from me, I and my colleagues are pushing hard. The customer me doesn't want to suffer, and the work me doesn't want to let the customer down or allow shabby products to exist out there...
You know where to comment!