Blogging and Promoting Awareness through the Written Word

By H. Court Young

Many people are not into writing, or blogging. However, in my opinion, writing and blogging are two of the most enjoyable and creative activities on the Internet. Blogging is a way of expression which gets your ideas out to the world, much like writing articles and books. Blogging, unlike writing articles and books, takes less time and can be much more free-form. It forms the basis for many of the social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

I love to write and publish books, because I want to promote awareness through the written word. It is also my reason for blogging and being on social media sites (Facebook and Twitter).

I wrote and published my e-book “The Art of Writing an e-Book, How to Enrich Yourself and Others” to help others write and publish books and e-Books. This e-Book (EPub) gives readers a number of tools to help them get ideas, increase their productivity and enhance their creativity. The information presented in this e-book are time-tested and used by some of the best authors in the field today.

Writing is one of the ways in which humans present ideas to each other. It is, in my opinion, one of the reasons that human societies are possible. The recording of ideas, thoughts, opinions, emotions, and observations of the world around us have allowed the history of human civilization to be passed down from generation to generation. Most of the scientific discoveries and technological advances of our modern society have been based on ideas and observations recorded by past generations.

For example, one of the oldest books available today is the Bible. It is thought that many of the written stories were originally passed down by the spoken language. However, the circulation increased exponentially when mass printing became available. The ability to read and knowledge also increased exponentially after the advent of the printing press.

“Two factors operated to accelerate the spread of Renaissance culture after 1450: growing economic prosperity and the printing press. Prosperity -- the result of peace and the decline of famine and the plague -- led to the founding of schools and colleges. In these schools the sons of gentlemen and nobles would receive a humanistic education imported from Italy. The purpose of such an education was to prepare men for a career in the church or civil service.” - http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/press.html

In today’s world, knowledge increases on an ever smaller time frame. This idea was presented by Ray Kurzweil as follows.

“In his 1999 book The Age of Spiritual Machines Kurzweil proposed "The Law of Accelerating Returns", according to which the rate of change in a wide variety of evolutionary systems (including but not limited to the growth of technologies) tends to increase exponentially.^{[7 “- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerating_change}

So what does this mean to you? There is an ever increasing bank of knowledge about many subjects which you can discover, research, explore and think about. But if you don’t make use of this knowledge, what good is it? Part of the human endeavor is to convey ideas, express opinions, pass on observations and ultimately to form relationships with others.

The tools presented in “The Art of Writing an e-Book” are just as useful for blogging as they are for writing articles and books. They will stimulate your thought process and help you organize and present your ideas in a meaningful way.

It is these relationships which make life worth living. Because you are a unique creation, your ideas, perceptions, observations and life experiences are also unique. If you keep them locked up inside your mind, you deny the world a very special, one of a kind view of human existence. Sharing with friends in discussions is great, but sharing with the world at large is even better. This is a great way to increase your relationships and touch the lives of people you will never meet.

This is the power of the written word. So, I encourage you to start blogging and making your ideas, experiences and thoughts available to a worldwide audience.

H. Court Young
December 10, 2014

Big Bucks and Our Future

 

I just read an excellent article written by Richard Nass in the August 2014 issue of Design News magazine. Mr. Nass’s article was entitled “Who Deserves to Make the Big Bucks?” His article inspired me to write this blog about our society’s and the global perception of big bucks and our future.

The basic premise of this article is a quote used by Mr. Nass from the keynote presentation by Dean Karmen. Mr. Karmen recently received the 2014 lifetime achievement award from UBM Cannon and is reportedly involved with a group whose acronym is ”FIRST.” It stands for:

”For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology”

According to the article, the mission of FIRST is;

”to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders by engaging them in exciting mentor based programs that build science, engineering and technology skills, that inspire innovation, and foster well-rounded life capabilities including self-confidence, communication and leadership.”

According to Mr. Nass one of one of Mr. Karmen’s comments can be paraphrased as follows:

“Why are we celebrating someone to control a baseball 90 miles an hour or two can put a basketball through a hoop, when the real stars are the kids who are starting down the path toward changing the world.”

You can read on almost any mainstream media website, like, MSN.com, in the sports section, descriptions of astronomical sums of money being thrown at these young, and even not so young, sports people. This occurs in football, baseball, golf, gymnastics and baseball, and even in my favorite sport, tennis.

While I am in no way a sports fan, and typically avoid watching it, I am not anti-sports. I do appreciate people who excel no matter what the activity.

However, Mr. Nash notes the current crop of NBA free agents in his article. He reflects on the monetary excess these talented people can expect from their status as free agents. He states;

“Those who are ‘free agents’, looking to latch on to the team that generally bids the highest for his services. And the numbers being thrown around our astronomical, upwards of $100 million (yup, you heard that right).”

However, along with the reported “astronomical” reward numbers, there also seems to be daily articles about these high profile, highly paid talented people going astray. For example, the following new story entitled, “Suspended Browns receiver Josh Gordon gets new gig selling cars at Ohio dealership.” This story on Fox Sports news notes “Gordon will be working a full work week - a minimum of 40 hours - according to Sarchione, with responsibilities in "every facet" of the dealership, including selling cars. Sarchione also said Gordon will be getting involved in the community by working with local charities.” Allegedly, Mr. Gordon was caught violating the league substance abuse policy.

In addition, recent news articles about domestic violence, as well as, drug use by high profile individuals, specifically in the sports arena, makes this issue even more relevant.

I applaud the NFL for cracking down on drug and domestic violence issues with both players and employees. These high profile, highly paid talented people have a dramatic and real impact on the younger generation. They are high visibility people who should be held to a higher standard for their very public actions because of their impact on future generations.

I do however question, just like Mr. Karmen, why we idolize and put these people on a pedestal when they really have very little long term impact on our society in any very deep way. Just because they command a large amount of public visibility and certainly a large, if not obscene amount of compensation, what do they really contribute? While I realize they provide entertainment and can be very beneficial role models for young people to one degree or another, is this really what we want our society to look like?

I spend a lot of time watching the Microsoft Research Video Library on the Internet. This program features some of the most innovative people in all aspects of life. The programs presented range from authors talking about their books to computer programmers talking about the research.

Topics/titles include:

· Introducing Project Adam: A New Deep Learning Program

· The Purpose Economy

· Recurrent Neural Networks for Dialog State Tracking

· Ultra Low Power Computers – 2014: Devices & Cloud

In my opinion, the people presenting on the Microsoft Research Video Library, as well as, the ones listening to them are the true “superstars.” They, in a very large way, are changing the perception and direction of our society. Many of these creative minds are the true innovators and builders of our technological society. They are the people who are propelling this country and our world forward into the 22^nd century.

[Note: The Windows 8 app link for this library is as follows, http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/downloads/eb218b76-3520-481c-8489-ad09a99399ea/default.aspx.]

There are many other worthwhile informational web sites similar to the Microsoft Innovative Research Program which will expand your mind and pique your curiosity. With all of the new information technology available, I find it ironic that one of the countries with the highest standard of living the world has ever seen spends the following amounts of time watching television.

Specifically, Nielsen, a global information and measurement company, reports the average weekly usage for ascending age groups:

· Age - 2-11: Time watched - 24 hours, 16 minutes.

· Age - 12-17: Time watched -20 hours, 41 minutes.

· Age - 18-24: Time watched - 22 hours, 27 minutes.

· Age - 25-34: Time watched -27 hours, 36 minutes.

· Age - 35-49: Time watched - 33 hours, 40 minutes.

· Age - 50-64: Time watched - 43 hours, 56 minutes.

· Age - 65-plus: Time watched - 50 hours, 34 minutes.

· [From: http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/average-american-watches-5-hours-tv-day-article-1.1711954: also http://www.nielsen.com]

While the television is an incredible invention which changed the world, much of the current programming, in my opinion, is in the same paradigm as the sports programs. While entertaining, these programs do little to inspire creativity or generate much in the way of thought. The Nielsen figures say a lot for the world we have created and for the one we are creating going forward.

So with the world in the state it is, why do we still revere the person who can throw a baseball at 90 mile per hour, sink a 100 foot put or put a basketball through a hoop? Perhaps life has become too easy for many in America and around the globe. After all it is easier to “sit” and be “entertained” rather than watch, read or study something that arouses curiosity and makes you think.

Or maybe it is “big business” with massive advertising campaigns and huge inventories of products and services to sell to make next quarter’s bottom line which drives us.

Either way, I believe the big bucks are not going to the people who will make this world better using their creativity and innovation in fields like engineering, science and technology. And yet, these are the people who, in large measure, give the most back to our society both in productivity and intellect.

Clearly we have wonderful technology which can and hopefully will dramatically change the world in years to come. What we lack are creative and innovative minds who both see value from using those talents and are valued for those talents, much as the sports stars are today. We need to adopt a mission statement like that of FIRST as a society.

From medicine to space travel, we need a paradigm shift to create and enhance minds like those that FIRST is trying to inspire and help develop.

H. Court Young
Promoting awareness through the written word
September 18, 2014

Big Data and CES 2014

As I watched the coverage of the 2014 Consumer Electronic Show (CES) held in Las Vegas, Nevada last week, I reflected back to a recent article which discussed data analysis as it related to managing employees, as well as employee learning and development. This article was a special report in the January 2014 issue of Talent Management magazine.

The article noted that large amounts of data, termed “Big Data” is the watchword in our global economy among computer and IT professionals. While the Talent Management article related to employees, it could just as well have related to our world in general from a data standpoint.

As a refresher, the following table relates data amounts (all values are approximate):

• · Kilobyte – 1,000 bytes
• · Megabyte – 1,000 kilobytes
• · Gigabyte – 1,000 megabytes
• · Terabyte – 1,000 gigabytes
• · Petabytes – 1,000 terabytes
• · Exabyte – 1,000 petabytes
• · Zettabyte – 1,000 exabytes
• · Yottabyte – 1,000 zettabytes

To make sense of the amount of data related to the values shown above, the following were noted in the Talent Management magazine article.

• 1 Gigabyte is equivalent to about seven minutes of high-definition video and two gigabytes is equivalent to about 20 yards of books on a shelf.
• 1 Exabyte is equivalent to about 250 million DVDs and five exabytes would just about cover a transcript of every word spoken in human history.
• 1 Petabyte is equal to 20 million four-drawer filing cabinets filled with text or 13.3 years of high-definition video.

To envision the challenges which may lie ahead, consider the smart phone revolution taking place today. Smart phones are taking the cell phone market by storm. This “portable, always connected” world is the new normal, even in developing countries. More people, globally, are connected via cell phones than by the 20^th century technology of the telephone and copper wires known as “land lines.”

So what does all of this have to do with the CES 2014 show in Las Vegas? New electronic products including curved big-screen ultra-high definition televisions, Windows 8.1, Apple and Android tablets, cell phones with high-definition screens and cameras and numerous “wearable electronics were all introduced to an increasingly digital driven world. Other digital devices such as appliances and even automobiles were demonstrated at this show. All of these devices go to the core of the “big-data” challenge.

As an example, cell phones, such as the Nokia Lumina 1020 with 40 mega-pixel capability, rival the photo taking ability of many high end digital cameras. Think of the megabytes and gigabytes of data which are transferred from these marvels of technology in both image and video format to tablets, laptops and internet social media sites on an annual basis. As a new grandparent, I can testify to a definite increase in photo production and transmission in our family to Facebook and other social media sites, as well as an increase in the amount of photos on my external USB storage drive.

One of the devices introduced at CES 2014 which caught my attention (not that all of them are not fascinating) was introduced by Belkin.

“A Belkin Crock-Pot WeMo Smart Slow Cooker ($99.99) is displayed during a CES media preview event. The crock-pot can be controlled remotely via a smartphone and should be available in March.”

This new crock pot allows a user to control the utensil using a cell phone. Presumably, one could “call into” your home network and turn the crock-pot on or off while still at the office, as well as monitor the progress of the utensil. When you arrived home, your dinner would be ready. The following is from the Belkin press release before the CES 2014 show.

LAS VEGAS – January 8, 2013 – Belkin, creator of people-inspired technology products, today announced WeMo SMART, a program designed to bring its simple, Wi-Fi based WeMo home automation platform to new brands and a wider variety of household devices. Jarden Consumer Solutions ("JCS"), a leading provider of global consumer products brands, will be the first company to partner with WeMo SMART for its Sunbeam®, Crock-Pot®, Mr. Coffee® and Oster® brands.

Operating this crock-pot does not sound like a data intensive process on the surface. However, it does require a control mechanism on the pot as well as, such as a home based WI-FI network connected to the Internet. It also requires an application which resides on the phone itself. This application is the programming which allows the phone and the crock pot and other home appliances to “communicate.”

These cell phone applications, termed “apps,” are relatively small amounts of programming which take advantage of the features and functions of the phone to perform a task. Apps are generally separated into three categories, tool apps, games apps and marketing apps. Clearly, the app for the crock-pot would be a tool app.

However, this is where it gets complicated. There were an estimated 800,000 “apps” available on each of the Google and Apple stores as of the end of 2013 (see mobithinking.com). The apps are only limited by the phone, tablet or computer technology, the technology which can be built into things like appliances and other objects, the total bandwidth available and finally the storage capacity available for the apps and necessary data. Examples of apps include controlling your smart television and playing games across the internet.

While Microsoft was late to the “app game,” it introduced the Windows 8 operating system in 2012/2013. This operating system is able to take advantage of these apps across different platforms, desktop, laptop, tablet and cell phone. Microsoft had over 143,000 “apps” in its store as of January 12, 2014 (winbeta.com).

Developing and writing apps has become a mini-economy unto itself. While many “apps” are free to install and use, most are not. Many of the games and other tools cost a few dollars or more. This is the evolution and monetization of program development and writing.

Think of our world, and the data, band width and processing requirements as our phones and computers start to communicate with stoves, dishwashers and other everyday appliances. It is not inconceivable that your refrigerator will communicate with the local grocery store to resupply any food which you are out of or you need for a specific recipe. Your refrigerator will need to store and compile data on what is currently in stock, how old it is, the expiration date and what you might need for a specific recipe. Whether this is on a storage device in the refrigerator, on a device in your home Wi-Fi network or on an external data storage unit, it will still increase your data storage requirements. The majority of the new consumer electronics at the CES 2014 show will increase the use of your home Wi-Fi network, as well as the more general networks of providers such as Verizon, AT&T and others.

The simple “apps” of the new tablet, and smartphone revolution take on a much larger significance. They are the tip of the iceberg. Our storage capabilities will need to increase both locally, in our homes, and globally.

For example, terabyte sized storage drives are now common in very slim USB form factors. These drives can be connected to tablets, ultra books and laptops. Most people use this type of drive, as well as flash drives to store their data today. Soon, instead of terabytes, these drives will be storing petabyte and exabyte quantities of data. These work for home storage, often acting as “network attached” or “external attached” storage devices shared by multiple computers, laptops, tablets and cell phones.

In addition, to share, process and utilize this vast quantity of data beyond our home computing devices and our local Wi-Fi communication providers such as Verizon, AT&T and others have to increase the amount of bandwidth we can access globally.

Storage “in the cloud” is the new business model for communications providers and most large international companies. Emerson says there are 509,147 data centers worldwide, with 285.8 million square feet of space. Or in more familiar terms, there’s enough data center space in the world to fit 5,955 football fields as of 2011 according to datacenterknowledge.com. Once you start considering the amount of data we process today, you get a sense of the explosion which is taking place today. It was estimated in 2011 there was 1.2 trillion gigabytes (GB) of data created, equivalent to 75 billion 16 GB iPods. That’s more than enough for every person on earth to own 10 iPods (source datacenterknowledge.com). All that data has to live somewhere, driving the need for more data center facilities.

To store all of this “big data”, data centers are being constructed at an increasing rate globally. In the next few years, most of the data previously stored on local servers in the back rooms of many businesses will be stored in these data centers. Microsoft, Amazon and Google, to name a few are positioning themselves to profit from this model in a big way.

These data centers allow massive quantities of data to be “mined” (analyzed and manipulated) which can yield everything from customer buying patterns to more intimate details about consumers in general. All of which can point toward additional customers and thus more revenue. Just as you will be able to tell your crock-pot to finish cooking dinner so it will be hot and ready when you arrive home, your local grocery store may be able to suggest recipes and specific ingredients for you to try based on your buying habits and tastes using a connection with your refrigerator.

Recent stories about the National Security Agency (NSA) collecting, manipulating and analyzing huge quantities of data from computers and cell phones worldwide is one of the potential downsides to this “cloud storage” concept. Security and protection of data may be one of the fastest growing fields in computer and internet technology for years to come.

So, the point is that many of the consumer electronics that previewed in Las Vegas at the CES 2014 show are part of an increasing revolution. As you can see, even the smallest, seemingly insignificant use such as those required by many of the new “wearable” electronics contribute to the massive increase in global electronic data. Computers, technology and electronics continue to change the world in ways that are increasingly unexpected, both for good and for bad. One thing is certain, the amount of electronic data in the world will definitely increase on a per person basis from today’s terabytes to tomorrow’s exabytes and beyond.

H. Court Young
January 12, 2014