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Corporate Presence Grenade

Shon — Wed, 06 Oct 2004 01:12:42 +0000

After working in a large corporate environment it has occurred to me that the corporate culture has developed a simple pattern matching behavior to determine whether a person is “In The Office” and that being ITO is usually considered a “productive” state. Moreover, the amount of time spent ITO is often perceived as directly proportional to the performance and dedication of the employee.

For example: “Wow, Bob was In The Office early all week and he left after I did every night! What a dedicated worked Bob is!” etc..

Additionally, in these large environments there seem a variety of satisfactory indications that an employee is ITO. In my environment there are 3 primary indicators. One virtual, and two physical. The virtual indicator is measured by an employee’s “online/available” status in the IM client of choice. The two physical indicators are, one, being seen physically in the office by another ITO employee, and two, having your office lights turned on, and having that state be witnessed by an ITO employee.

In summary, as a side effect of the common practice of having the building automatically shut off the lights in your office when you aren’t there, it has become commonplace to assume that you are ITO (and therefore working hard) if the lights in your office are on, even though you may not actually be physically in your office at the time.

This behavior has lead me to design the Corporate Presence Grenade. Simply put, the CPG is a device that will emit a burst of 8-12nm infrared energy at a programmable interval to convince the infrared motion detector in your office that a human is in the room and to leave the lights on.

An employee armed with a CPG can be more productive than ever before! The reality is that in the Information Age there’s no reason to be chained to a desk other than the false perception that ITO matters. With the CPG you can have the best of both worlds!

Think of the respect and recognition you’ll get while using the CPG! The CPG will retail for less than a RonCo Rotisserie Chicken Oven and is *guaranteed to net you a 25% raise in your first 90 days of ownership! I’m taking pre-orders now! Look for the CPG on store shelves or in your grocers freezer by Christmas!

PRE ORDER TODAY!

*guarantee void in all states that contain vowels.

The future of computing…

Shon — Tue, 18 May 2004 02:57:56 +0000

Weave just sent me this video of the OQO “ultra personal” computer. The funny thing is I sent him to the same site (tho no the video) about a year ago. Unfortunatley the oqo has been in vapor for a looooong time…

But the point is clear. A super small (5 inch) device that is a fully capable x86 computer with a built in keyboard that when slotted in it’s cradle is a desktop replacment sounds like the future to me.

Wake up tablet people. Read these letters… k-e-y-b-o-a-r-d!!! KEYBOARD… most geeks type a whole lot faster than they write. Pens and tablet PC’s are cute.. but they’ve missed the point. A “real” pen and pad of paper is more practicle than a tablet pc for a zillion reasons… and if I’m going to actually tote a computer around with me I don’t want to use the ancient art of handwriting, I WANT TO TYPE!!!! For gods sake!!!

Why Nanotech is the “Virtual Reality” of the 2000′s

Shon — Thu, 04 Dec 2003 05:35:53 +0000

It seems that at least once a decade the scientific / technical community will spawn a new “technological savior”. And this “savior” will become the new hope for the future. It will solve all of the worlds problems. Or at the very least it will make our work infinitely easier and our lives more enjoyable. From the late 80′s through the mid 90′s it was Virtual Reality. VR was going give every man, woman and child their own personal utopia. VR was going to revolutionize things like human communication, education and entertainment. Well, some say the moment of anticipation is the greatest. For VR and it’s techno-savior brethren that is definitely true. VR like many saviors has never materialized. Artificial Intelligence is another great example. People in the 70′s 80′s and 90′s believed that thinking machines were just around the corner. Today, though computing power has grown at an exponential rate, AI still hasn’t arrived.

The newest all-singing-all-dancing techno-savior is undoubtedly Nano Technology. Nanotech is basically the science of machines that are very very small. People believe that Nanotech will revolutionize everything from cleaning toilets to curing any and all human ailments. Nanotech will solve the food shortage, it will build homes for the poor, it will enable us to colonize space, it will cure Cancer, AIDS and Alzheimer’s. Plus, it recycles! It uses pollution and waste as fuel! Not to mention that once it’s developed it will be essentially free! Sounds like Jesus you say? Nope… it’s just nanotech.

PFFFFFFT!!! Nanotech is great… it will let us make smaller machines, smaller, faster chips, etc. But without the simultaneous advancement of many supporting technologies like massively scaleable networking and control systems, better AI, better data acquisition and about a dozen other things nanotech will be nothing more than an evolution of our current semiconductor manufacturing processes. So I doubt we’ll be seeing fuzzy clouds of nanobots swirling around making new skyscrapers out of piles of dirty diapers and burning tires any time soon.

Not unlike any other religion, technophiles just need something to believe in.