My Father's World, My World

In thinking about the death of my father last week, I have been comparing the world my father was born into (my grandfather's world) to the world I was born into (my father's world) and the one my daughter was born into (my world). Each of us as children enjoy and suffer from the decisions that our parents, and our parents' generations have made. And with the resulting "world order."

In 1938, the year my father was born, Hitler marched into Austria and declared that it was now part of the German Reich. Great Britian and France ceded Czechoslovakia to the Germans in a short-sighted attempt to avoid war. And on November 9th, in an event to be remembered as Kristallnacht, Nazis burned synagogues, destroyed Jewish shops, and killed Jews at random. 1938 was a dark year for the world.

The earliest years of my father's childhood were spent in an America fighting world war against governments unafraid of using their power to evil ends. In 1939 Hitler invaded both Czechoslavakia and Poland and entered into the axis agreement with Italy's Mussolini. In 1940 Paris falls and France surrenders to the Nazis. And in 1941, when my father was the age my daughter is today, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, bringing the United States into the war.

My father was almost the age my step daughter is now when, in 1945, Germany officially surrendered and the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshimi and Nagasaki, accelerating Japan's surrender. At the age of 7, my father had lived his entire life in a world at war. Of course the coming years were dark as well, with the constant cloud of conflict with Stalin's Soviet Union hanging over the head's of his generation as they came into adulthood.

By 1966 when I was born, the pattern of proxy wars between the West and the Soviet Union had been established with a war in Korea mostly behind the US (well... it still isn't entirely behind us) but with war in Vietnam escalating. Despite continued hostility between the world powers, a half century of American dominance in business and technical innovation was well underway by then, making my childhood much different from my father's. Where America had been a relatively weak player in an enormously fragmented and dangerous world, my father came of age in a world where America became a world power.

After first getting a law degree from Boalt Hall at UC Berkeley, my father entered the business world with an inheritence wrested away from his wealthy uncles and grandmother. His father had passed away while he was still a child and he had grown increasingly concerned that his grandmother and uncles would spend all of the money before he received any of it... so he spent it himself instead.

He created a company called Shopper's Plan - one of the first credit card companies in the country. Before we had Visa and Mastercard, stores had "charge plates" that were specific to a particular store or sometimes (rarely) a chain of stores. The 1960s idea of the credit card was a store-independent charge plate. Shopper's Plan could offer this innovation because of the power of this new-fangled invention, the computer.

It was an audacious business idea and it would have required incredible execution to succeed with the (relatively) limited financial resources my father had at his disposal - just a few million dollars (although that was 1960s dollars...). Unfortunately my father was not a terrific business person and the business was soon on the rocks. Complicating things my father got his secretary (my mother) pregnant.

He was already married, with two daughters. Yet he left his wife and began over again with my mother. Within four years he had left my mother and moved on to a string of girlfriends before settling down with his last partner, whom he stayed with until his death (almost 30 years).

to be continued...

World as Symbolic System

For the past 14 hours I have been staring at a computer screen, logged on to various linux systems, moving files, configuring servers, testing... Deeply enmeshed in a particular symbolic system. As I drove home I saw the world with different eyes - the world as its own kind of symbolic system. Some of it imposed by man on the environment (stop sign, crosswalk) some natural (tree, rock). Each blade of grass is a symbol - albeit many without obvious meaning. Like a file you might touch but is devoid of content. Or perhaps each has a very simple meaning like all of those devices in /dev... I should really stop looking at a computer screen about now.

My Father with My Daughter April 2005

My Father with My Daughter April 2005,
originally uploaded by Ted Shelton.

On a trip with the whole family down to Los Angeles a little over a year ago. The only time my daughter ever saw my father. He was still doing OK at that point, although the radiation treatments drained him of strength.

Charles Edward Shelton, RIP

I will be able to write more about this soon. But for now just the news. My father died today of cancer. My sister was with him in the Los Angeles hospital room.

He has been dying for 10 years of cancer - prostate cancer that was diagnosed too late to cure. The cancer spread throughout his body and fortunately for him, medical advances allowed him to live a good life over those 10 years. Only in the last 6 months or so had the disease progressed to far that his quality of life was diminished to the point where living was an enormous burden for him.

So it is with sadness, but also long expectation and relief that the living go on without him. He is survived by his long-time partner, his three daughters and me.

Memory Machine

What we write here may be much less important for who reads it today and more important as a record of our civilization at this time and place. The web is the collective memory of the millions of people that record their thoughts here. Hopefully we will find ways to record these transient memories into some more permanent form so that future researchers will have this treasure trove to draw from when trying to understand the insanity of our current times.

Jerry brown on election night

Jerry brown on election night,
originally uploaded by Ted Shelton.

Garvin Thomas, of NBC Channel 11 ended up being selected by my camera phone as the focus for this photo instead of Jerry Brown... and then I had to drop the phone in my pocket as Jerry was headed straight at me and I wanted to shake his hand to congratulate him on his win -- Jerry was modest - "the race isn't over yet."

Jerry is in the building...

Currently giving interviews but is modestkly repeating that while he
currently has 66% of the vote, only 2% has been counted so far....

The venue

In the shadow of the 880 freeway, 555 5th avenue is home to the Oakland
Police Officers Association. Police organizations throughout the state
have come out in favor of Brown for attorney general...

Yes, we are killing time while awaiting Jerry Brown's arrival...

News crews awaiting Jerry Brown

National and state news organizations gather to hear Jerry Brown accept
the nomination from the CA Democratic party to run in his first
statewide election since stepping down as governor...

Jerry Brown Election Night Campaign HQ

Blogging live from 555 5th avenue in Oakland where Jerry Brown will be
accepting the democratic nomination to Attorney General for
California...

Congrats to ORB

A number of exciting things are breaking this week and next week for Orb Networks where I continue to have many friends (and am a stockholder). AMD Live is one exciting partner for Orb:

"AMD LIVE! On Demand, powered by Orb extends your entertainment experience to anywhere you are, at home or on the go! Access and control your live or prerecorded TV, music, pictures, videos and more from virtually any web-connected device."

Another huge win is the distribution deal with Hauppauge which has over 8 million tuner cards in the market...

And my friends tell me that more announcements are coming! Congrats guys!

The Stolen 2004 Election

The current issue of Rolling Stone Magazine is featuring an article by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. titled, "Was the 2004 Election Stolen?" -- Read this article. Rolling Stone also offers an editorial calling for an investigation. The lead to Kennedy's article:

"Republicans prevented more than 350,000 voters in Ohio from casting ballots or having their votes counted -- enough to have put John Kerry in the White House."

The editors of Rolling Stone:

"Enough. Only a complete investigation by federal authorities can determine the full extent of any bribery and vote rigging that has taken place. The public must be assured that the power to count the votes -- and to recount them, if necessary -- will not be ceded to for-profit corporations with a vested interest in superseding the will of the people. America's elections are the most fundamental element of our democracy -- not a market to be privatized by companies like Diebold."

Let's hope this gets the ball rolling with the electorate (since the politicians have been too afraid of the issue) to find out what really is happening to our democracy. Before it is too late.

URL: http://www.personalbee.com/bee_article.php?grpno=1211&artno=2591867

Transportation Metaphor for Media

An essay on the future of media, using a transpportation metaphor (and comparison...)

Summary: From the perspective of mobility, the automobile is the mass-customization post-industrial technology. Railroads are industrial transportation -- they follow specific fixed paths and travel on time s...

URL: http://www.personalbee.com/bee_article.php?grpno=1211&artno=2526386

Google Building AI

Could Google co-founder Larry Page be right (read this report from London) in saying that Google can succeed in building true artificial intelligence "within a few years?"? Late last year I wrote about an excellent speech by George Dyson republished at Edge.org (and still worth reading if you haven't already). To excerpt just one comment again:

"When our machines overtook us, too complex and efficient for us to control, they did it so fast and so smoothly and so usefully, only a fool or a prophet would have dared complain."

The development of strong artificial intelligence by anyone - country or company - will be a worldchanging event. It seems that Google really is hard at work on this task. Assuming that such an effort succeeds in developing a system which works for the betterment of its creators, one can appreciate why Google doesn't worry much about competition from Microsoft or Yahoo. Google is playing an entirely different game.

Where everyone else in the tech industry is pursuing linear technical development strategies, Google is pursuing a corner-cutting strategy of building a better tool -- a tool that (if successful) will change the entire basis for competition. How can any group of engineers at Microsoft hope to compete against the development resources of a world-wide artificial intelligence?

Time to buy Google stock?

Watch Newsom Run

Last night I had the opportunity to attend a fundraising event for San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. As luck would have it, I ended up standing right next to him as he addressed the crowd of 40 or 50 local business people that had gathered to help him pay off the last of the campaign debt from his successful mayoral campaign 2 1/2 years ago.

Newsom was articulate, knowledgable, and (for me) struck the right balance between progressive social consciousness and grounded pro-business realism. It was hard not to be impressed. In fact, the question I most wanted to ask Gavin (but respectfully did not) was "are you going to make a stop at the state house or head straight to Washington?"

When Senator Feinstein is ready to step aside, I hope our state gives Gavin a chance to represent our views, and a progressive option for our nation. I know I will be campaigning for him.

Peak Oil will change our lives

One of the most important articles you can read today (or even this week) is Erik Curran's "Peak Oil will change our lives" published on Monday in the Energy Bulletin.

Dozens of leading petroleum geologists as well others in the oil industry and in government have agreed that we are nearing the twilight of cheap oil. Chevron has launched a campaign to inform the public that oil is depleting. The U.S. Army is planning for permanent oil shortages. Even the U.S. Department of Energy put out a 91-page report on the subject in February 2005.

"As (oil) peaking is approached," the report said, "liquid fuel prices and price volatility will increase dramatically, and, without timely mitigation, the economic, social and political costs will be unprecedented. Viable mitigation options exist on both the supply and demand sides, but to have substantial impact, they must be initiated more than a decade in advance of peaking."

Read the whole article. And also check out the "Peak Oil Primer" that the folks at the Energy Bulletin have put together.

A Modest Proposal - Gasoline Taxes

Everyone is talking about how "high" gasoline prices are now in the US. One brave soul testifying to congress yesterday actually suggested that the best way to reduce America's dependency on foreign oil would be an increase in gasoline taxes. Yes, raise the price of gasoline. Think congress would consider this? Not if they want to be re-elected.

But lets take a quick look at the numbers. We are spending $10 billion per month fighting George's war in Iraq. According to the US Government Energy Information Administration we consume roughly 20 million barrels per day. A barrel is about 42 gallons of gas. So that 840 million gallons of gas per day. Or 25 billion gallons per month. So a $0.50 per gallon fuel tax would pay for the Iraq war and have money left over to rebuild New Orleans.

Question for Runners

I run fairly in the morning here in Berkeley, so (on a good morning) I often don't see anyone at all. But sometimes I see other runners. Invariably if the runner is male he will make some gesture in greeting, usually a wave. However if the runner is female, she will refuse to even make eye contact much less wave. Assuming my experience is similar to other male runners (and is not just because I look scary...) here is the question -- do female runners wave to other female runners? Is it that waving in greeting is something only male runners do or is it a separation of the sexes issues?

Personal Bee Beta Launched

It has taken longer than I had originally wanted. And we aren't as far along as I would have liked. And there are 2 or 3 bugs that are really nagging at me to go fix... BUT, we have done it - pushed the new look and feel of The Personal Bee live out to the world. You can read what Dan Brekke has to say about the launch over here on the Bee Blog.

The biggest thing missing from this release, which I hope to rectify by the first week of May, is the ability to create new Bee editions -- this is still in a private beta. There are two primary reasons for this -- (1) the wizards we have under development which will make it easy to create a new Bee aren't ready yet and (2) we want to get a new phrase parser into production to handle significant increases in the number of bees that we will be handling...

So what IS in this release?

A beautiful new look and feel, access to 40+ public Bees, the ability to discover articles within those topic areas that are interesting and then tag, comment, and email those articles. Also, the ability to export a "reading list" to another website or blog...

Discover, Share, Build -- these are the three legs of our stool. We have more work to do to lengthen those legs and make this a platform for all kinds of news aggregation and distribution, but we have the core of the idea in place. Enjoy.

Save the Mercury News?

Saving the Mercury News? This strikes me as a little like the "third rail" of our world -- talking about the future of print media in an online forum run by the very print business being discussed... But it is an important question that deserves a serious answer.

As anyone who knows me will tell you, I am a strong supporter of a free and independent media. I am in the camp that believes that democracy is only possible when the society supports and protects a free flow of information and ideas. I am strongly influenced by thinkers such as Richard Rorty ("Take care of freedom and truth will take care of itself").

But I am troubled by the notion that the Mercury News needs to be "saved." What exactly does this mean? A review of the "save the merc" website does not clarify the situation. On this site I read:

"We are apprehensive that a buyer who does not understand our community and value the journalism that we provide will adopt what one Wall Street analyst termed a "scorched earth" policy. Under this scenario, substantial cost-cutting and smaller staffs would follow a sale. The impact on our community of readers and advertisers would be severe."

If the impact on the "community of readers and advertisers" was severe, then this business strategy of destroying the value inherent in the community coverage would be counter-productive to the goal of running a profitable business. Why would a buyer destroy the asset that he or she purchased?

In the "State of the Media 2006" - a report out from The Project for Excellence in Journalism (stateofthemedia.org) we learn that newspapers are reducing local coverage all over the country. Philadelphia, offered as emblematic, has half as many reporters (24) covering the local community than they had in 1980 (46). Some of this attrition might be attributed to increasing productivity, but clearly some of it is due to a reduced editorial budget which comes as a direct result of dropping readership and advertising.

So it is not unreasonable for the Mercury News staff to worry that their paper may get leaner in the years to come. Especially if the current trends continue and readership of print continues to decline. And especially if the print mode is the primary focus of their enterprise.

But as Silicon Beat itself has shown, there is a vibrant community of interest online for the kinds of local coverage (tech industry in this case) that journalists at what we have come to call big city newspapers can offer. So perhaps the real challenge for "saving" the San Jose Mercury News and other daily papers is to learn how the new online media can prove to be a generator of readership and advertising as the old media of print declines into our memories.

Change is hard. People have a lot of trouble with change. But somehow we live in a world of flush toilets, jet airplanes, and the Internet anyway.