Eclectic Memes

A comment in Doc Searl’s recent iPad post got me wondering whether the iPad market is really the n00bs, the people who have yet to enter the computer market. All those users who want simplicity. They just want something that provides access to the internet, e-mail, perhaps basic letter writing, their photos and some music, all provided in an attractive easy to use package.

Okay, netbooks fill those criteria, but they are still seem as ‘computers’ by most people and the idea of a ‘computer’ conjures, for many, the impression of complexity. Most netbooks us Windows and for all its efforts to provide simplicity it is still more complex than many people are comfortable with.

The iPad is sufficiently different that people will not see it as a computer; the fear is removed. It removes complexity. No ‘Start’ menu, just point to the thing you want and it starts. Pressing something on the web browser causes the link to be called up. Swipe to scroll or turn pages in an e-book. The keyboard appears when you click in a field that needs input and disappears when it is no longer needed. Resizing images is performed with the intuitive pinch motion.

Oh, and the iPad entry model is cheap compared to the competition.

Yes, I can see that the iPad (even in its current form) has a place with users who want a commodity item that is not a ‘computer’ but provides access to the information age.

So it’s here, the latest Apple offering is, as many, many pundits predicted, a tablet. Watching the launch I confess to being underwhelmed by the technical specification. It is, frankly, rather dull. However…

So too was the original iPhone. Remember the original iPhone 1.o? An object of design desire no doubt, but otherwise rather dull, offering only 2G and no developer access. The iPad is, I suspect, going to follow a similar trajectory to the iPhone. The first generation is wifi only, the second (to follow swiftly) will add 3G with, in the States at least, an attractive carrier package that will make it a more promising offering. I also suspect that the third iteration will be the model I buy.

By generation three the iPad will be not only eye-wateringly beautiful and attractive to use (those fortunate enough to get hands on at the launch report delight at the user experience), but it will also have attracted some innovative applications. I also suspect Apple will add new hardware features; a camera or two perhaps, making it an ideal video conferencing platform, and maybe GPS to make it a very attractive platform for augmented reality applications.

So, while the first (and second) generations are currently not offering a sufficiently attractive package to compel me to join the inevitable legions of early adopters I am in the queue of people waiting for the platforms inevitable evolution and keenly await its arrival.

This is the single most feeble minded position offered in defense of intrusions in people’s private lives.

Consider the UK governments obsession with spying on, indexing and cataloging their citizens. Often proponents of things like the DNA database, identity cards and consolidated cross department data sharing trot out the ‘if you’re innocent you have nothing to worry about’ trope.

Really? You’re that naive?

The problem is not that the government are competent enough to use this information to spy on their citizens (let’s face it they can barely manage to keep track of their citizens for most legitimate reasons – like not sending tax bills to dead people). The problem is that they are incompetent to be trusted with such a vast amount of information. There is simply no way to ensure that this information is secure (lost disks, USB sticks and laptops containing sensitive information are forever being reported in the news).

My concern is not over ‘Big Brother’ but over ‘Nosey Parker’ and ‘Fraudulent Fred’ who, if pst records are anything to go by, will have even more access to more data if the government is permitted to keep increasingly invasive information about their citizens.

… are the new bane of my life. Mercifully I only have to contend with them twice a week; Monday and Friday. But when I am heading home on Friday evening it is frustrating to be held to fifty miles per hour on roads that normal whisk me along at seventy. Add to this the generally slow traffic and congestion over the ninety miles of M1 I cover and the whole process becomes intensely tedious. The upshot of all this is that a journey that should take about two hours takes three.

Roadworks are in some respects interesting. For example, it is often observed (particularly by people regularly caught in traffic) that motorway roadworks seem to be in place forever and no one is ever seen working on them. The truth is that companies tasked with motorway maintenance and improvement are charged for closing lanes. This chargeback encourages efficiency because the longer lanes are closed the more it costs the contractor. In other words, the lane closure becomes an overhead on the contract, and one that continues to burn into the contractors margin if they overrun. This is a neat example of smart thinking.

The contractor will program into their estimates the lane closure costs, but obviously this cost is directly related to their estimate of how long the job will take. Suppose they estimate ten weeks for a piece of work requiring two lanes to be closed (one on each carriageway) over one mile. The highways agency might charge one million pound a week for one mile of carriageway. So the total cost of the lane closure for the project would be twenty millions. If the contractor overruns by two weeks they receive no additional funds, but must pay an additional four millions in lane closure costs. If the contractor finished early then they save money, so the onus is on the awarding body to ensure that timescales are kept tight while the contractor attempts to extend them. In reality the cost of a project will be well understood by now. The standard cost for, for example, a lane resurfacing will already be established, so contractors only have a limited scope for extending estimates of work.

The dynamics of contract bid and awards is more dynamic than this because of two significant factors; there are only a limited number of contractors capable of performing such work (perhaps six in the UK) and each contractor has a limited capacity. The government, of course, puts all work out to tender. Each tender is bid on my two or more of the pool of capable contractors and the work awarded to the lowest bidder. This leads inevitably to collusion, both implicit (which it okay) and explicit (which is a violation of the terms of the tender, but let’s be realistic when we’re dealing with multi-million pound contracts). Collusion leads to situations in which bids are arificially inflated by contractors who have already reached capacity. This then allows other contractors to bid higher without losing the contract. In the long run this arrangement results in quid pro quo as contractor benefit from a sort of inverse prisoner’s dilemma. In an attempt to limit this sort of bid manipulation the contracting agency insists on sealed bids, terms on the bid to expressly forbid collusion, and so on. In truth these things have a limited effect.

Love them or hate them, roadworks are here to stay.

*Sigh* After a year of minimal car use I am now, once again, dependent on my car. So of course it decides to develop a fault.

Driving the 3.7 miles from my hotel to the client’s site this morning  the battery warning light lit up and stayed on. Since my car is best, and generously, described as basic, this means the alternator had committed suicide. Having had the alternator replaced only a few months ago you can imagine my delight at this piece of news.

So, iPhone to the rescue. “Find me a car repair service near me” (thank you “Were to?”) it was only a couple of minutes effort to find a local garage and one of the splendid chaps I work with followed me to the garage so I could drop of my car and get a lift back to work.

Sure enough the alternator was toast. The really bad news was that my previous ‘economy’ fix meant the alternator was a refurbished, rather than new, unit. So instead of the £70 plus labour charged last time I was confronted with a bill for £150 plus labour for a new alternator. Ouch!

Another of my new colleagues dropped me off after work (splendid chap) and having forked over the requisite dosh I am now hopeful the damn thing will last a little longer than the last time.

The moral of this tale… economy is an illusion.

Back on the work treadmill that is.

Starting a new contract is always interesting. After all you get to learn about a new way of working (no two organisations are alike) and see other peoples efforts to solve problems that almost all organisations face at one time or another. The length of time required for this initial learning period varies wildly depending upon how open the client is, how well documented their practices are recorded, how easy it is for me to access their systems, and how much freedom I am given to work the way I prefer (after twenty years I have developed my own may of doing things that is, for me, most productive — so the more the client can live with my approach the more productive I can be).

For obvious reasons I am reticent to discuss individual clients in blogs. Certainly not when I am working for them, and when I leave them I only discuss their circumstances without attribution. For now I will simply note that this client is, so far, very open and cooperative. This bodes well for our future relationship because the more I can get along with the client, the more I think they are actually listening and responding to what I am saying, the more productive I can be for them.

Well, this is day two of this contract so I shall keep this post short as I have much to mull over.