Spring Framework as a Form of Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

Whether planned or not, premeditated or otherwise, the Java Spring Framework effectively followed/follows an "Embrace, extend, and extinguish" path.

From Wikipedia: also known as "Embrace, extend, and exterminate",[2] is a phrase that the U.S. Department of Justice found[3] and was used internally by Microsoft[4] to describe its strategy for entering product categories involving widely used standards, extending those standards with proprietary capabilities, and then using those differences to disadvantage its competitors.


The strategy

The strategy's three phases are:
Embrace: Development of software substantially compatible with a competing product, or implementing a public standard.
Extend: Addition and promotion of features not supported by the competing product or part of the standard, creating interoperability problems for customers who try to use the 'simple' standard.
Extinguish: When extensions become a de facto standard because of their dominant market share, they marginalize competitors that do not or cannot support the new extensions.


This can also apply to open source projects as with the Java Spring Framework. Spring originally embraced the J2EE standard for the purpose of "fixing" its shortcomings by extending the standards using its own annotations and following its "convention over configuration" tactic. The framework followed this tactic instead of working to change the standard until Spring built applications were so far from being compatible with standard Java Enterprise framework that those shops which embraced it could not afford to not continue to use it and the tools built to support it. Then Spring was touted as "cutting edge" while those that stuck with the standard were backward.


Anytime a tool dictates design such that it becomes required for further changes and future design, you are trapped. You are then the tool.

Can Wealth Be Created Without Printing More Money?

It is a simple question with it seems very complex answers.

Many Libertarian and Conservative economic views hinge on the assumption that wealth can be created. It is said as one simple proof that since wealth can indeed be destroyed, that it can also be created. Here is one article on this viewpoint.

Many Socialist and Liberal economic views hinge on the assumption that wealth is a limited pie that cannot be made bigger. It is said that economics is a zero-sum game, when one gains wealth others must necessarily loose wealth. Here is one article on this viewpoint.

It is plain that land IS a limited resource. Natural resources are used up but new natural resources are also discovered however it is plain that over all time natural resources ARE limited simply because the earth is a physical thing and it does not make more of itself.

But other things of value are all around us that are created and destroyed. Value or wealth is added to the economy or created. However if we add value or create wealth we are essentially increasing the supply of value or valuable things and services. If those additions represent a net gain and if we hold the supply of money, cash etc., constant then it seems logical that the value of money would gradually decrease as the supply of valuable commodities increased unless we increase the supply of money with the supply of value.

Conversely if we simply increase the money supply without increasing the supply of value in the economy then we should see inflation and it should take more money to buy less such that money is worth less.

Therefore, IMHO wealth CANNOT be created without a corresponding creation of more money without causing deflation.

So to summarize,

If wealth is created by individuals or companies and therefore the total value of the economy is increased but the money supply is kept the same or decreased then you will have deflation, more things are competing for the same or less of an amount of currency.

If wealth is created by individuals or companies and therefore the total value of the economy is increased and the money supply is increased proportionally then you will have neither inflation nor deflation but more things and more money.

If wealth is held constant and the money supply is decreased then you will have deflation.

If wealth is held constant and the money supply is increased then you will have inflation.

If wealth is destroyed by individuals or companies and therefore the total value of the economy is decreased but the money supply is kept the same or increased then you will have inflation, less things are competing for the same or more of an amount of currency.

If wealth is destroyed by individuals or companies and therefore the total value of the economy is decreased and the money supply is decreased proportionally then you will have neither inflation nor deflation but less things and less money.

The question then is what is required to create wealth? Who has the means, abilities, initiative and opportunity to create wealth?

And who controls the money supply?

And do the answers to those questions equate to a "fair" system for all?

What are your thoughts?

Live Where The Food Is! World Hunger, Logistics, and Politics

An article in the latest National Geographic on Food states that the worlds farmers produce enough food to feed every human being on earth roughly 2868 calories per day, 768 calories more than the recommended 2100 calories per day by the World Food Programme. So why is there still hunger in the world? Why do approximately 40 Million people per year die of hunger and close to 1 Billion suffer some adverse effects from nutritional shortcomings?

We know why:

• War 
• Lack of infrastructure 
• Weather 
• Natural disasters 
• Government corruption 
• Lack of leadership 

Besides these reasons there is one more. In the areas of the world where we have more than enough we keep some people out. We maintain what we have by limiting the numbers of people and types of people we allow into our lands. We take care of our own. Nothing wrong with that in terms of survival. It is a fact. But most of us probably believe in more than just survival of the fittest. So we try to help by giving to those nations that have less. Problem is the problems listed above.

Comedian Sam Kinison had a famous rant about hunger:

"You want to help world hunger? Stop sending them food. Don't send them another bite, send them U-Hauls. Send them a guy that says, "You know, we've been coming here giving you food for about 35 years now and we were driving through the desert, and we realized there wouldn't BE world hunger if you people would live where the FOOD IS! YOU LIVE IN A DESERT!! UNDERSTAND THAT? YOU LIVE IN A FUCKING DESERT!! NOTHING GROWS HERE! NOTHING'S GONNA GROW HERE! Come here, you see this? This is sand. You know what it's gonna be 100 years from now? IT'S GONNA BE SAND!! YOU LIVE IN A FUCKING DESERT! We have deserts in America, we just don't LIVE in them, assholes!" The video of this can be viewed here: 

Hyperpower: The shot heard round the world

The shot heard round the world during the beginning of the American War for Independence was indeed heard in every country that has since rebelled against dictatorship and monarchy and chosen liberty and democracy. First throughout Europe and the rest of the Americas, then India, then through the old Soviet Block nations, the Arab Spring as a spurt at least, now undercurrents in China as well as other nations. Even if those revolutions may point to other inspirations, ever since America became an independent democracy, no matter the realities or debates about "how" democratic it is, people around the globe have known and been able to point to one place on earth where people stood up and declared their freedom and still declare it.

The American experiment has continued with setbacks and struggles. The American culture has grown into a distinct one through the first two centuries of its existence. That culture permeates the entire world through its television, movies, books, magazines, news, fashion, music, and other forms of art. Governments and religious institutions try to slow it or stop it but it can't be stopped because it consists of ideas, especially of ideas about freedoms that all should enjoy.

And what makes those ideas about freedom so irresistible is their nature as indicated by Thomas Jefferson, they are self-evident. Just as knowing that wind is real even though you can't see it or that gravity is real because you can sense it and feel it or that time is real because its passing leaves its marks, freedom of speech, of thought, of religion, of expression, and all of the other freedoms we hold dear and that our laws maintain, seem naturally right, correct, hard to argue against, true.

Even though America may win some military battles and wars and loose others, the power of its culture ceaselessly marches forward into every other culture in the world winning victory after victory, reshaping the world to at least grab hold of the freedoms at its core. Instead of a superpower, this cultural hegemony suggest what has been called hyperpower, an influence above and beyond military, political, and economic supremacy.

What Makes Things or Ideas Go Viral?

A recent book, "Contagious: Why Things Catch On" by Jonah Berger, lays out a road-map or a recipe for taking almost anything or any idea and making it go viral. This book completes a trilogy of books by different authors that look at different angles of this topic with the first being Malcolm Gladwell's "The Tipping Point" and the second being Chip and Dan Heath's "Made To Stick". In "Contagious" Jonah Berger presents six ingredients that contribute to the making things spread across a populous, describes why each aspect is significant, and gives numerous examples . He lists the pieces as Social Currency, Triggers, Emotion, Public, Practical Value, and Stories (STEPPS).

John Berger offers the STEPPS as a framework which he defines succinctly with the following list/acronym which really must be understood alongside the book's narrative on the research behind it and the examples described as well as on the paramount concept that word of mouth IS the vehicle that makes things, products, ideas, etc. (IT) viral.

• (S) Social Currency - make talking about IT make people look good, appear smart, worth remarking on to others, feel like an insider, can game-like mechanics like points etc be employed to initiate competitive or habitual achievement type behaviors. 
•  (T) Triggers - make as many associations or links to IT from other things as is sensibly or logically possible; other things that are themselves popular, common place, or commonly encountered often in everyday life.
• (E) Emotion - make IT generate emotion when talked about, the more intense the type of feeling, negative or positive, the better as long as the negative type does not turn away people. 
• (P) Public - make IT publicly tangibly visible when people use IT or talk about IT and if possible make IT reverberate over time after public use or exposure. 
• (P) Practical Value - make IT help people and thus help people help others by sharing information about IT; make it easy for people to help others by spreading, sharing, or talking about IT
• (S) Stories - make IT part of a story that can be retold in a way that cannot leave out IT; make IT integral to the narrative but make sure the story is itself worth retelling by making it broadly interesting while also making use of the other STEPPS if possible within the tale. 

The more of the STEPPS that can be applied to IT the better but they are not an all or nothing proposition and they are not sequential. This is just a quick smattering of the concepts in this book. To fully understand each the book should be read in its entirety. 

Covering All Bets, Why American Politics Is Split Down The Middle

Many reasons are cited for the division in modern American politics. Reasons why almost every presidential election, where neither candidate was an incumbent, since Ronald Reagan has been won by a less than 8% difference in the popular vote. In fact however the divisiveness goes back much further with over 90% of the presidential elections, where neither candidate was an incumbent, since 1840 having been won by a 10% or less difference in the popular vote with the exception being during the Great Depression and when candidates had taken over due to an assassination.

The main reason for this even split is that the slate of candidates to be chosen FROM during any given election is not chosen BY the majority of the American electorate, not even BY a decent minority of say 10 to 10%. The choice of candidates presented to the American electorate is made by the very small number of wealthy individuals, corporations, and other organizations that contribute over 90% of all of the funds used by candidates and parties to run campaigns. This money is given with the intent of influencing a candidate's future behavior if they win office. And since these wealthy individuals, corporations, and other organizations are not in the business of gambling, they cover all bets by planning for all eventualities by giving funds and support to both sides in an election such that both sides are influenced in the same directions no matter what the candidates public discourse may indicate. Hence the American electorate is presented with candidates that represent a difference without distinction.

The choice then is between two substantively identical options which then really are not "options" and do not constitute a true "choice". A campaign finance overhaul must be implemented that changes the legal max contributions from political donors such that candidates are forced to get donations from a much larger number of individuals distributed across the population.

Stimulate Creativity in Yourself and Others

A few exercises and thoughts on being more creative:


1. Think of and write down as many uses as possible for an everyday object or define the function of something and then find other things that do or could perform a similar function.


2. Given a stack of similar shapes like squares or triangles, make as many things out of them as possible


3. Given an unfinished shape like an incomplete triangle or circle or stick house etc. complete the image.


4. Given three unrelated words try to discover a fourth that would connect all three.


5. Choose a random object word and connect it with a problem. Can this be used to solve or elaborate on the problem?


6. Six Thinking Hats - view a problem from different perspectives:

a. Managing - what is the subject? what are we thinking about? what is the goal?

b. Information - considering purely what information is available, what are the facts?

c. Emotions - intuitive or instinctive gut reactions or statements of emotional feeling (but not any justification)

d. Discernment - logic applied to identifying reasons to be cautious and conservative

e. Optimistic response - logic applied to identifying benefits, seeking harmony

f. Creativity - statements of provocation and investigation, seeing where a thought goes


7. Don't judge things right away, let them stew before making a conclusion


8. If you can't follow what makes you curious when it happens, take note of your own questions to be investigated later


9. Make mistakes and learn from failures, both yours and others, sound out crazy or absurd ideas


10. Make sure to define problems correctly, dissect the problem.


11. What can be modified, rearranged, and/or removed to fix something or find a solution?


12. Re-frame ideas within another context or situation.


13. Ask why something is done the way it’s done.


14. Challenge traditional views and constantly ask "What if" or "Why not"


15. Create new mindsets by being open to new experiences like new foods, tastes, music, arts, languages, crafts, fields of study, exercises, sports, locations.





Some material gathered from:

Todd Anderson, http://99u.com/articles/7160/test-your-creativity-5-classic-creative-challenges

Saga Briggs, From: http://www.opencolleges.edu.au/informed/features/divergent-thinking/#ixzz3HgRpFnKW

Edward de Bon and Wikipedia "Six Thinking Hats"

Science Channel - "Hack My Brain"

Software/Solutions, Fabrication or Assembly, What Are We Doing?

Is your company or organization fabricating solutions and/or software systems or are you simply assembling pieces and parts of pre-built components into some sort of "system" that performs some set of functions or capabilities? What constitutes true creation, development, or fabrication. One source defines fabrication as "Manufacturing process in which an item is made (fabricated) from raw or semi-finished materials instead of being assembled from ready-made components or parts."

Are the Tenets of Islam Undemocratic?

Are the tenets of Islam as expressed in the Quran and Sharia Law and as interpreted by the majority in majority Muslim nations inherently undemocratic? I mean if the tenets expressed for example in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights http://lnkd.in/dYJV5MF signed by most nations on earth and the similar US Declaration of Independence and the US Bill of Rights do represent moral tenets, a kind of political, social, and cultural morality then a religion, as a set of moral tenets could disagree but in any nation one must publicly, legally, politically take precedent.

To be clear, I am implying that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the US Declaration of Independence, the US Bill of Rights, and documents similar in meaning to them represent the defining characteristics of a democracy, in the absence of which or without public belief in a nation is NOT democratic.

The Next Frontier in Cyber-Warfare

With so many researchers and organizations working on AI or pseudo-AI, powerful analysis systems with vast resources and data, inevitably those systems may be directly or indirectly, intentionally or unintentionally, used against one another. Instead of Ray Kurzweil's all powerful AI technological singularity we may instead see a multiplicity of very powerful AI systems come to fruition.


What if these systems were taught to deceive other AI systems through manipulation of the data that the other system uses or depends on? What if one system hacked another? What if they cooperated? What if they fought? What if they just caused errors by accident in each other's analysis simply be acting in ways that subverted each other's data, assumptions, logic, etc? Or created feedback loops within each other systems such that they caused each others predictions or analysis or conclusions to be true or false when they would or would not have been otherwise merely through their unintentional interaction?


Maybe this is all science fiction but for how long? And what about AI counter-measures?

What will human beings do?

T

he last episode of "Parts Unknown" on CNN with Anthony Bourdain on Shanghai contained a discussion between Anthony Bourdain and Professor Zhou Lin, Economist and current Dean of the College of Economics and Management at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Professor Lin was educated in American universities and has taught at Yale, Duke, and Arizona State. During the discussion Professor Lin raises an interesting point at the end of the conversation.


He says "the difficulty, nowadays, is" ... that ... "the technology is so advanced ".. that ... "we don't really need that many people to do things that many people used to do," ... with the population being ... "7 billion people, the world probably doesn't need that many people working anymore... So the question is what should human beings do? You know, how can you let them not do anything and then still live a good life? I don't know. It's going to be a big issue" ... that the ... "whole world" ... will have to face"


Do we all become poets, artists, philosophers? Vegetate? Dream? If all of the worlds needs and wants can be fulfilled by a few because of technology then how does the rest of the population occupy itself? Or how does it access what the few has produced? If they must buy or trade for it, then how do they get something to trade or buy with? What then is the currency? Or is everything distributed based on some other system? What system?

Fallacies of Scale: Agile vs SAFe

The Agile development approach as described in the Agile Manifesto, has greatly improved the efficiency of software development in many small to medium sized projects around the world. By connecting development teams with product owners, customers, and gaining continuous feedback with continuously delivered functionality, the Agile approach has transformed software engineering and development.


On the other hand, the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) approach, in trying to apply the Agile method to enterprise scale, with teams of teams and scrums or scrums, and release trains etc. has only recreated the waterfall method with new names and designations. The crux of the Agile approach is lost with SAFe. There is no logical reason why Agile should work with large systems development but nevertheless it is being attempted in some cases just so an enterprise can claim to be agile. However, once the connection with the customer is broken and truly useful complete functionality to the end user is no longer what is being delivered, the approach will no longer reap the benefits of the Agile method.


Maybe instead of trying to scale up the Agile approach we should instead be looking at how to scale down large projects into sizes that will work with the Agile method and then leave the integration of these smaller systems to methodologies designed for such.

Fallacies of Scale: OO vs SO(A)

The introduction of Object Oriented design as a continuation of modular programming paradigms, has greatly improved the software development and design process. It has made it much easier and more possible to describe highly complex systems and processes by allowing us to model and work with associated domains and problems in software by abstracting functionality and data. This has decreased complexity, increased reliability, and through efficiency saved resources. Service Oriented design and architectural approaches are an extension of the principles of Object Oriented design to the architectural and systems spaces along with distributed computing principles. As such, Service Oriented design and architecture represents an attempt, whether conscious or not, to translate the success associated with Object Oriented design to a larger scale problem space; to the systems, the systems-of-systems, and/or the distributed systems domains. However, there is no logical reason why this translation should succeed in the transference of benefits from the one scale to the other and it has not done so. Furthermore, I argue that SO(A) has achieved the opposite effect as compared to OOD in that it has increased complexity, decreased reliability, and wasted vast amounts of resources. It may have made it easier for non-technical higher levels of management to think that they understand or can manage systems but this is with great inefficiencies and unnecessary expenditures of time and resources.

Subjective Well-Being and Online Social Networks

Fabio Sabatini at Sapienza University of Rome in Italy and Francesco Sarracino at STATEC in Luxembourg have published a very interesting study on the use of online social networks and people's subjective sense of general well-being.

An article in MIT Tech Review, discusses the results published here


I would be curious to see what the impact of online social networking may be on such things as elections, marriages, geographic trends, etc. based on statistically valid data and analysis.


Further still, how online social networks are or are not manipulated and how feedback loops might cause types of self-reinforcing and/or self-magnifying effects

In Plain Sight

The wine press existed for over 5000 years before it inspired the printing press.

What technologies are we staring at in plain sight that might inspire the next great invention that will dramatically alter civilization as we know it?

Change Isn't Everything

Our attention and focus are often caught by movement and change. But often what is not changing, what is constant, what is immovable, is what is more important. Think of this as looking at the negative of a picture on film. Take for example fractals.

What's interesting about fractals are the repeating patterns. Patterns that appear at infinite scale within the pattern itself. In other words the unchanging aspect is more important than the changing. Or imagine an event where a crowd is being watched for threats. A few individuals in the crowd seem to have NOT moved throughout the day. The rest of the crowd has ebbed and flowed during the same time. What if those individuals are THE threat? Maybe they were preposition to do some harm. If you were only paying attention to what was changing you might have missed the threat. That could be categorized as pattern recognition but maybe the only "patterns" being tracked were change patterns. Sometimes constants can reveal underlying fundamental structures and lead to extensible truths concerning common phenomena. Some hidden aspects that might lead to a breakthrough.