Posted on : By : TCTJr Posted in : Direct Thoughts

Visualization Frameworks – A List

Visualize Your Visualizations

Visualization has come into vogue in the past years.  Historically this was the world of straight reporting and key performance indicators.  This is not the case now.  FlowingData has brought interactive data analysis to the forefront.   This is due to the ability for us to process massive amounts of data and the uptake in what I like to call fluid  data systems.  If you have seen the books Beautiful Visualization, Data Analysis or Visualize This then you know there are several choices of frameworks and libraries to choose from in this area.  As of late I have been asked a ton of questions about what/why/when of these libraries so I decided to put them all in one place.  While no means comprehensive (e.g. I didn’t include Haskell, MATLAB,’R” et al) Here is the list.  Hit me up if you find something else as I will keep a running list.

Axiis

http://www.axiis.org/index.html

Although Axiis claims open source Flex is not open source. Axiis is an open source data visualization framework designed for beginner and expert developers alike.  Whether you are building elegant charts for executive briefings or exploring the boundaries of advanced data visualization research, Axiis has something for you. Axiis provides both pre-built visualization components as well as abstract layout patterns and rendering classes that allow you to create your own unique visualizations.

Axiis is built upon the Degrafa graphics framework and Adobe Flex 3.

Prefuse:

We have used prefuse in the past and it is very flexible.  JAVA based and can be modified to run extremely efficient.  That said one must have a programming background.

Prefuse is a set of software tools for creating rich interactive data visualizations. The original prefuse toolkit provides a visualization framework for the Java programming language. The prefuse flare toolkit provides visualization and animation tools for ActionScript and the Adobe Flash Player.

Prefuse supports a rich set of features for data modeling, visualization, and interaction. It provides optimized data structures for tables, graphs, and trees, a host of layout and visual encoding techniques, and support for animation, dynamic queries, integrated search, and database connectivity. Prefuse is written in Java, using the Java 2D graphics library, and is easily integrated into Java Swing applications or web applets. Prefuse is licensed under the terms of a BSD license, and can be freely used for both commercial and non-commercial purposes.

The visualization gallery and demonstration video provide numerous examples of the types of applications that can be built with the prefuse toolkit.

http://prefuse.org/

Protovis:

Protovis composes custom views of data with simple marks such as bars and dots. Unlike low-level graphics libraries that quickly become tedious for visualization, Protovis defines marks through dynamic properties that encode data, allowing inheritance, scales and layouts to simplify construction.

Protovis is free and open-source, provided under the BSD License. It uses JavaScript and SVG for web-native visualizations; no plugin required (though you will need a modern web browser)! Although programming experience is helpful, Protovis is mostly declarative and designed to be learned by example.

http://mbostock.github.com/protovis/

JavaScript InfoVis Toolkit:

The JavaScript InfoVis Toolkit provides tools for creating Interactive Data Visualizations for the Web.

The toolkit implements advanced features of information visualization like TreeMaps, an adapted visualization of trees based on theSpaceTree, a focus+context technique to plot Hyperbolic Trees, a radial layout of trees with advanced animations -called RGraph and other visualizations.

In November 2010 the toolkit was acquired by the Sencha Labs Foundation.

http://thejit.org/

Processing:

Processing.js is the sister project of the popular Processing visual programming language, designed for the web. Processing.js makes your data visualizations, digital art, interactive animations, educational graphs, video games, etc. work using web standards and without any plug-ins. You write code using the Processing language, include it in your web page, and Processing.js does the rest. It’s not magic, but almost.

http://processingjs.org/

JGraph:

While more of a diagraming solution than a visualization mxGraph/JGraph is used in conjunction with the Swing library.  JGraph has been providing leading diagramming software components since 2001, first with ever popular JGraph Swing library, then in 2006 with the leading edge development of mxGraph.  The libraries are designed to drop in and offer you the complete range of functionality required to add complex diagramming to your application or web site.

http://www.jgraph.com/mxgraph.html

Flot:

We have had good experiences with Flot. It is fast and flexible with low overhead.  Flot is a pure Javascript plotting library for jQuery. It produces graphical plots of arbitrary datasets on-the-fly client-side.  The focus is on simple usage (all settings are optional), attractive looks and interactive features like zooming and mouse tracking.  The plugin works with Internet Explorer 6+, Firefox 2.x+, Safari 3.0+, Opera 9.5+ and Konqueror 4.x+ with the HTML canvas tag (the excanvasJavascript emulation helper is used for IE < 9).

http://code.google.com/p/flot/

MatPlotLib:

If your into snake charming and use Python then MatPlotLib is for you.  While the installation is not straightforward the flexibility is there from a user perspective.  I see a huge uptake in this library and personally use it.

http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/

CorePlot

This library works extremely well for development on the iPhone.  If you need a complete graphing functionality that is cost effective download this lib.

Core Plot is a plotting framework for Mac OS X and iOS. It provides 2D visualization of data, and is tightly integrated with Apple technologies like Core Animation, Core Data, and Cocoa Bindings.

http://code.google.com/p/core-plot/

philoGL:

This is a derivative of the InfoViz libs from sencha .  I do not know much about them but it looks very useful.

http://senchalabs.github.com/philogl/

Tulip:

Written in C++ the framework enables the development of algorithms, visual encodings, interaction techniques, data models, and domain-specific visualizations. One of the goal of Tulip is to facilitates the reuse of components and allows the developers to focus on programming their application. This development pipeline makes the framework efficient for research prototyping as well as the development of end-user applications.  They have libraries for several implementations (Python,Open GL etc).

http://tulip.labri.fr/TulipDrupal/

GGOBI:

We tried out ggobi a long time ago.  While it does appear noteworthy we opted not to utilize it on the respective project.  GGobi is an open source visualization program for exploring high-dimensional data. It provides highly dynamic and interactive graphics such as tours, as well as familiar graphics such as the scatterplot, barchart and parallel coordinates plots. Plots are interactive and linked with brushing and identification.

http://www.ggobi.org/

Mondarian:

Mondrian is a general purpose statistical data-visualization system. It features outstanding interactive visualization techniques for data of almost any kind, and has particular strengths, compared to other tools, for working with Categorical Data, Geographical Data and LARGE Data.

All plots in Mondrian are fully linked, and offer many interactions and queries. Any case selected in a plot in Mondrian is highlighted in all other plots.

Currently implemented plots comprise Histograms, Boxplots y by x, Scatterplots, Barcharts, Mosaicplots, Missing Value Plots, Parallel Coordinates/Boxplots, SPLOMs and Maps.

Mondrian works with data in standard tab-delimited or comma-separated ASCII files and can load data from R workspaces. There is basic support for working directly on data in Databases (please email for further info).

Mondrian is written in JAVA and is distributed as a native application (wrapper) for MacOS X and Windows. Linux users need to start the jar-file.  It is heavily used and leveraged against ‘R’.

http://rosuda.org/mondrian/

Once again while this is not a comprehensive list it is more than adequate to get your feet wet in the world of visualization and datascience.  One of the most salient things you can do for your self is a little scripting or programming.  Also a little math doesnt hurt either.  So do not be scared of a summation sign.  Dust off those old stat books and get to it then you can start delving into more advanced topics in BigData.

Until Then,

Go Big or Go Home,

@tctjr

Posted on : By : TCTJr Posted in : Direct Thoughts

In Memoriam – Steven Swenson March 13, 1967 – September 11, 2005

Sven To You


Most will consider 9/11  as remembrance of an atrocity that occurred within our nation.  Some cried.  Some died. Some cheered.  I think 9/11 as it is commonly known within the vernacular and as “The Event”, was a pathetic display of religion and government gone awry.  I personally know people who made it out of the towers – they are near and dear to me.  Their stories are gut wrenching.  Running till they puked with bodies flying like rain, splattering on pavement, with an additional hailstorm of aviation gas, fumes and concrete.   Yet in elite fashion the people that I know rebuilt their lives both in terms of monetary success, physical and mental performance.

That said I know September 11 as another day. Over the years since September 11, 2005  I continually think about my comrade at arms: Steven Swenson (aka Sven).   For those that do not know he died in a free diving accident in Costa Rica on this day in 2005.  Many will say that one should “move on” and forget.  Yet I say Time can be crystallized much like a wound that is cauterized with high heat.   Time is a construct –  we can stop time at a moment of our affinity – surrounding yourself with what you enjoy.  Many of you who “follow” my blog, tweets or facebook pages will have a succinct understanding of my views on life.  The elite perform.  There are no free lunches and the aspects of Lex Talionis are alive and well at certain echelons of life for those that love the game within the game.

I am continually asked about proverbial secrets of success and tales of certain times in my life  – especially when a group of us banded together during the hay day of silicon valley (then not now).

Loose lips sink ships and dead pirates tell no tales.  There are many tales that will never be told as half of them went to the watery abyss with Sven.   Given his favorite hobby was free diving his ‘relaxation’ was focused around pushing limits and boundaries.  Most of our copious free hobby time was usually spent in some discussion of philosophy, math,music or making money.  He was the most intense nihilist that loved life and living “the great indulgence” more than anyone I knew.  He continually said Schrodinger cat is eviscerated not just dead.  His computer science skills are now tales of valley folklore.  He read hexadecimal like a Dr. Suess book.  He was also a very well trained martial artist and an obvious waterman.

Yet I will tell a tale that I remember as it were last week.

Late one night we were involved in a marathon session of billiards  on the “purple monster” as we affectionately called my 9 foot purple tiger maple table.

We had a song list in rotation using some software that we created or were testing and laughing how stupid it was to be making money –  making something so stupid.  Yet I digress.  On the playlist came Jimmy Buffet’s “That’s What Living Is To Me” which is based on Following The Equator by Mark Twain,  of which both Sven and I would incessantly  discuss  how Mr. Samuel Clemmons was so beautifully scathing with pen and word.  We turned the song up extremely loud and he was screaming the following stanza:

“Be good and you will be lonesome

Be lonesome and you will be free

Live a lie and you will live to regret it

That’s what living is to me”

So while this isn’t some prurient, lurid or debauched tale, it reflects many salient aspects of why I miss my comrade.  He despised liars and loved life, as well as being extremely responsible.

One should never tell enemies anything, tell your friends everything and assume enemy until proven otherwise.  Sven proved himself a true friend of like mind and for me there are few  – as I prefer quality over quantity.

I recently had supper with his beautiful wife and two handsome sons.  Amazing the older one looked just like him and the younger one was asking me technical programming questions (still a youngster) in the same cadence as SVEN.  They were arguing with each other in the same point-counter point as their dad.  I answered patiently and as best I could intently looking and listening to both of them.

I was attempting to catch that cauterized timeline, that time crystallization and for a brief instance – a flash: my comrade was there.

With that I will leave with you a quote, a Sven assertion and a song dedicated to my comrade:

“With heart and hand I pledge you while I load my gun again, you will never be forgotten or the enemy forgiven, my good comrade.”

~ Dr. A. Lavey

 “Mediocrity is NOT an option!” ~ Steven Swenson

Comrade, by Blood Axis.

 [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQAOAWD91sI]

ALL HAIL THE SVEN!

 

 

Posted on : By : TCTJr Posted in : Direct Thoughts

Enterprise Version X

What No EDI?

Yes Germonio this is no longer Kansas.  I am amazed and maybe haven’t been keeping abreast of what is actually happening in the so called Enterprise world (even though I have been working in it for a while).  Here is my confusion.  If you take the definition of Electronic data interchange (EDI) one will find that it is “It is used to transfer electronic documents or business data from one computer system to another computer system without human intervention.”  So given that (and here is where I may be getting confused) many companies for several disparate reasons are requesting that they want to scale – writ large – these batch processing EDI systems – without changing anything – just by adding a SOA layer on top of the existing RDBMS architecture.  Really?  Now recently I wrote a blog about map reduction of machine learning algorithms and mentioned NoSQL architectures however  Nathan Hurst wrote a great blog and took a page out of Brewer’s CAP theorem for a visualization of NoSQL and RDBMS:

 

Where most of these companies and entities get into problems is not wanting to change the fundamental data model.  Many of these “conversions” or the “wanting to convert” start with understanding the data that presides in these decades old RDBMS or the basic process in general of what is happening within these enterprise systems:

 

Basically we are running into a problem where the fundamental issues are:  (1) the data model (2) creation of a set of canonical rules (3) choosing an architecture based on the triangle mentioned above.  Most companies do not want to take stock in understanding from a programmatic perspective what is in the data base.  Most companies keep adding data, stored procedures, key value pairs and columns and call that scale.  Then they realize that 7M, 10M, 50M, 200M people are going to hit this system in a stochastic manner.   We have to hire more analysts, more coders, more people.  That is not scale.  Scale is creating a canonical set of rules, reducing the data model to a core set of attributes and creating machine learning for data hygiene and integrity.  Then naturally most people believe or inquire as to the data accuracy.  Well it is a give and take, humans are not 100% accurate 100% percent of the time.  I would rather have an 80/20 rule and get the data results faster then operate on the focus of 100% correct data 100% of the time.  It is more natural to operate on the the 20% outliers and re-train the system based on those anomalies. Remember the first step is acknowledgement of the actual problem.   As I said in an much earlier blog on adapatibility that homeostasis is the death knell of most companies.  You must build an evolution or revolutionary strategy into your technology roadmap or at least plan with some contingencies.  Thus this brings into question what exactly is enterprise software?

Until Then,

Go Big Or Go Home!

//ted

Posted on : By : TCTJr Posted in : Direct Thoughts

The South Should Follow Suit

Well leave it up to the crew on the left coast to create something –  well overwhelming.  Muri Milner and Ron Conway are teaming together to offer EVERY Y-Combinator startup – 40 of them – all of them – investment money.  Here are some of the terms

They haven’t even seen most of the startups yet. This is a bet on the quality of Y Combinator startups in general.

All of the new Y Combinator entrepreneurs gathered at Y Combinator headquarters in Mountain View California on Friday evening to hear about the offer, They weren’t told why they were supposed to be there, just that something important was happening. The SV Angel team was there in person. Milner joined from Europe by video conference.

The terms? $150,000 in convertible debt. With no cap and no discount. If you’re an investor you know exactly what that means and you just shuddered a little. Those aren’t terms that most angels can match.

Ok I can hear it now.  Well they have had a head start they can afford it.  Guess what I am tired of that parrot talk.  You know what?  There is some of the oldest and most money in the South and North for that matter.  Let me change this – EAST COAST should follow suit.  Yet they will not.  its too compartmentalized over here on the “right coast”.  Let me illustrate:

1. New York – Ad mafia folks.  Good money but once again always looking for ad related tech.

2. Boston – if your across the river from MIT forget it.

3. Washington, DC. – contractor and skunkwerks

4. Atlanta, GA – trying to be the epicenter of the SE

and really that is about it.  How do I know?  Over the years I have probably been in direct contact with over 90 VCs ranging from so called seed to growth funding. Really the biggest and best investment I have seen lately come out of the right coast is from Brian O’Kelly’s shop AppNexus and rightfully so yet think about the magnitude of what Milner and Conway are going to create.  I know for a fact and will not illustrate here that there is a ton of money on the right coast.  Further there is a ton of money in the South.  Couple that with our quality life and Charleston, SC could be an epicenter for technology.  Yet a long time ago in a land faraway I was criticized for saying that the Seed money on the east coast is like Series A on the west coast as far as timelines.

I am worried that the left coast is going to come get all the talent on the right coast and especially in The South and call it INSHORING.

Maybe I’ll save that for another blog.

Posted on : By : TCTJr Posted in : Direct Thoughts|Out In The Fringe|Random_Thoughts

A D A P T I B I L I T Y !

Well low and below I was having some tea this morning and going through my thousands of RSS feeds and one of the survival method blogs wrote about the following subject matter:

Why Do People Fail To Adapt?

1. Not seeing what is happening. Sometimes folks just aren’t informed on what is going on. Hard to make logical conclusions and adapt to them if you don’t have the information.

2. Refusal to accept the new reality. Folks will just stick their heads in the sand and hope the problem goes away. Often this happens with a family who can’t afford to maintain their current lifestyle. They will try to borrow and juggle bills and try to hold onto the greased string as long as they possibly can. Like tearing off a band aid going slower makes it worse. Better to have a couple really rough months than a couple pretty rough years.  Also there are those starving farmers in Africa. Ya know the ones you always see on the aids commercials? The ones who keep planting pathetic little gardens on their 1/2 of an acre farm in the Sudan where 9/10 years there is a drought that kills all the crops.

3. They limit their options. They refuse to try the kind of food that is available and starve instead. They refuse to move to find work. They hope old jobs will come back instead of focusing on retraining and finding new employment.

4. They give up – Adapting, at least in the context we are talking about, is usually unpleasant. Like any other human situation, there is a huge psychological factor. When something bad happens, I am not saying you shouldn’t be sad. Eat a carton of ice cream, or drink a half bottle of booze or whatever it is you do. Go to sleep, wake up and get the heck on with your life. It will eventually get better.

Wow.  Say it aint so?!   Lets do an item-by-item analysis here.

Item #1 Not Seeing what is happening.

Being aware and not being stupid.  Ok this is almost a circular argument as solipsism is seeping in here.  Really?  Please make logical and rational decisions. Pretty obvious and appears to be a given if your building software.  In many cases not being informed is another way of saying you do not have the background to process the information.

Item #2 Refusal to accept the new reality.

This is a big one.  In many cases people cannot cope with vast changes in technology or any type of culture.  I mentioned homeostasis in my last blog.  Resistant to change.    It is a conundrum of sorts.  They want better yet they do not want to deal with a new reality or they have the inability to understand a new reality.  This is occurring in the world of database technology.  (thought I would throw in some software terms to make it tech based).  It is hard when someone busts your whole reality of what you thought was possible.  We no longer need huge co-locations to run companies.  EC2 changed what is possible.  People are still fighting it.  Machines that learn?  OMG they will take jobs away!  It reminds me of the 1950s robot scare (not that I was around then I just read about it…)

Item #3 They Limit their options

Doesn’t this appear counterintuitive when you take it out of the context of life and death or not creating competitive software?  Options! Choices! Menus! Features!  Heck Sonic Burger makes a killing on menu features and options.  So does Microsoft Office – something like 1739 features?

Item #4 They give up adapting.

If you just quit, you get what you deserve. This doesn’t mean keep doing the same thing over and over and over and over and expecting a different result – that is crazy.  If you just quit and literally give up you deserve what you get.  Go Home.  Walk on home boy.

There is also a flip side to adaptation and that is knowing when to hold the line and not change to the latest bright shiny object or algorithm.  This is also adaptation albeit using experience.  Being Patient is an adaptive.  Mr Alligatorinae pictured above is a great animal at being patient.  Be Patient – Adapt – Emerge.

Until Then

Go Big Or Go Home.

Original site can be accessed here:

WHY DO PEOPLE FAIL TO ADAPT?

Posted on : By : TCTJr Posted in : Direct Thoughts|General Discussion

Social Darwinism and Software Development

I was having a discussion the other day with a couple of very smart humans.  The discussion trended towards the aspect of performance which naturally led me to start joking about  meetings called “Nurturing Others In The Work Environment” and “I’m Ok – Your OK”.  A very bright software engineer,  on my current team, commented the software speaks for itself, which got me around to the current installment.  The software does speak for itself.  In fact, elite software truly speaks for itself.  Further software development is the ultimate survival of the fittest from an evolutionary standpoint.  For those not familiar with this subject matter I cannot at this juncture give you cliff notes.  Thus we are not nurturing others in the blogosphere.   Mr Spencer who was a pretty smart feller was attributed to coining the phrase “Survival Of The Fittest”.   Stanford is kind enough to give you a great rundown of the subject matter here.  Concerning the taboo terminology of Social Darwinism, we can locate the Wikipedia definition as thus.  Richard Hofstadter devoted an entire chapter of Social Darwinism in American Thought (1955) to Spencer, arguing that Spencer’s unfortunate vogue in late nineteenth-century America inspired Andrew Carnegie and William Graham Sumner’s visions of unbridled and unrepentant capitalism. For Hofstadter, Spencer was an “ultra-conservative” for whom the poor were so much unfit detritus. If you have not read Hofstadter’s book, you should. Once again it is outside the scope of this blog to review but it is one of the few tomes on the “taboo” subject of Social Darwinism.  Also if you have a Facebook account there is a Social Darwinism fan page.

It is my belief that the world of Spencer and Hofstadster via the foundation of Darwin, can be seen in the world of software development.  If you have ever worked on software that touched multiple millions of deployments to billions of feeds you know the importance of quality.  You also know the importance of performance and accuracy.  There is no arguing what happens when someone “breaks the build”.  It is NOT OK – YOU ARE NOT OK.  In fact you are probably going to get your ass called at 2:30 AM after you pulled a 3 day straight coding sprint to get up and fix it or else.  Does this sound like nurturing others in the work environment?  Hell No!  You are costing people money!.   It is a binary process.  Its either on or its off and it better be ON!  All systems go.  I am not saying that we should seek complete perfection, elegance and bug free coding that is impossible if your going to make bank through software creation.  He who ships first will win – if the quality is there.  Yet if your grinding and someone is lagging they are left severely behind the pack and if you watch the discovery channel you know what happens when there are laggers in nature.  It is not pretty.

This is a view from the inside.  From the outside most only see the frisbees and imported beer and sitting there with Pantera playing on the headphones whilst sitting in front of a computing device.  Easy huh?  Think again.  Real coders, data scientist, architects <<insert title de jour here>>  literally have ice running in their veins when it comes to creating software  – usually for money.  As I wrote in other installments, I discussed extreme capitalism and mercenaries.  Good, Better, Best.  It is especially exacerbated when the best of the best make it look easy.  The same for sports.  Kelly Slater, Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan these people make it look so easy.  Aplomb comes to mind.  I am fond of saying, ” To do a dangerous thing with style is the mark of a professional”.

Historically the software industry was a juxtaposition of the peace love and happiness stuff which is in direct conflict with what actually occurs within the world of software. Another interesting aspect to the software world that one must always be A D A P T I N G.  Homeostasis is a death knell to software company.   Microsoft missed the internet but sat down and decided to give away Internet Explorer.  Apple was tanking and created colorful computers.  Companies that continually evolve and change adapt to technology trends and market pressures – win.  Antiquated static slow moving companies are akin to the diseased of a pack and will be taken down.

Dont let you or your company be the one that is taken down.  Evolve. Change. Grow.  Seek Power through great software.  Innovation and Great Code speak volumes.  Amplify those qualities.

Until Then,

Go Big Or Go Home!

Posted on : By : TCTJr Posted in : Direct Thoughts

In Memoriam – Steven Swenson March 13, 1967 – September 11, 2005

Today this blog is not about technology or ideas.  Its a Memoriam.

Most will consider 9/11  as a remembrance of an atrocity that occurred within our nation.  Some cried.  Some died. Some cheered.  Personally, I think 9/11 as it is commonly known within the vernacular and as “The Event”, was a pathetic display of religion and government gone awry.

That said over the years since September 11, 2005 –  I remember it as the day my brother at arms died.

His name was Steven Swenson (a.k.a The Sven).

If you are familiar with OS9, OSX or Windows XP then you are familiar with this man’s works of art.  Steven was an incredible software engineer.  His design ethos as well as his ability to write solid code and adapt in the moment were world class. This year, in homage, I am going to discuss some little known facts and would be fiction depending on whom you talk to concerning some experiences. This is timely, as of late many people have been asking me about how it was to work at Apple, Microsoft, and The Valley in general.  First, I will set the stage with some “Sven-isms” that he used to say or yell depending on the situation:

“Mediocrity Is Not An Option!”

“That is fucking stupid”

( Usually in response to someone’s question if anyone had any comments or feedback  – complete with laughter.)

So with the “level set” a couple of vignettes:

Story #1

We are standing around at “The Evil Empire” and I asked Steven what he had going on with respect to a code base that we had just finished architecting.  He said he had to check in some last minute changes and he was finished.  Then his manager walked in and said that he has a bug in the code.  The following discussion took place:

Sven: “OK, I’ll take a look at it now.”  He told me to wait a minute.

Sven: “Oh boy I am a dumbfuck, OK its fixed.”  (insert technical reason here)

Sven looking at his manager: “Ok its fixed now, it looks like that was the last bug in triage before RTM.”

Manager: “Your six weeks early with the (insert current code base here).  What are you going to do now?”

Sven: “I am going to the gym with TCT.”

Manager: “Then what?”

Sven: “Stay out of here as long as I can.”

Beautiful really.  Just beautiful.

Story #2

We are somewhere in Cupertino, CA hanging out at a certain Loop.  We were working on an new operating system circa 1999.  There was a discussion over how we were going to implement some real time Application Programmer Interfaces.  There appeared to be a disconnect between the two technical lead / managers, the Sven being one of the two at odds.  So we were sitting there arguing.  He gets up and says:

“I am going to beat the shit out of you.”

I get in between them and he starts at the other lead manager.

I grab him and throw him outside the building.

He says, ” I am going to get a gun and kill that motherfucker.”

I punch him and he keeps yelling.

I hold him down and tell him I am going to knock him out if if he doesnt stop.

He said, “Ok but that guy is leading us down a path that will fail.”

I only can hope to find people who care about Quality as much as he did.

Story #3

One year for Xmas I gave my team a shirt that said, “100% Microsoft Free – FuckBillGates.com”

I gave these shirts to them before coming back from lunch at the Evil Empire.

I knew exactly what was going to happen. I dropped The Sven off somewhere around say building 31 and he proceeded to put the shirt on.  He said he had to give design meetings the rest of the day.  I responded that he might not want to do that.  He said “Fuck them if they can’t take a joke.” I called later and inquired about the response.  He said no one said anything that they were a bunch of pathetic followers.

I suppose if the shoe fits.

Think you have created some cool stuff?  Think again.  In that same vein this is how much Steven or ( The Sven ) hated computers:

PC Destruction Video

This was one of his favorite songs:

Pantera: Becoming

Here are the Lyrics to Sing Along with…

A long time ago I never knew myself. Then the memory
Of shame birthed its gift.
No more. The small one, the weak one, the frightened one.
Running from beatings, deflating. I’m becoming more
Than a man. More than you ever were. Driven and burning
To rise beyond Jesus.
I’m born again with snakes eyes
Becoming Godsize
I found my life was slipping through my hands. Perhaps
Through death my life won’t be so bad.
I can see you, can fuck you, inside of you. Staring through
Your eyes. Belittle your friends to serve me, to suck me,
To realize my saving grasp. I of suicide. I the unlord.
I’m born again with snakes eyes
Becoming Godsize

In retrospect, it might have been prescient. He probably would tell me to shut the fuck up.  In addition to being a great computer scientist he was also a great waterman, knew martial arts and was in phenomenal shape.  He was much better than most.  He was elite and a Nihilist at the same time.  He believed Schrödinger’s cat was dead and eviscerated, so to speak.  He thought most were stupid and most were mediocre humans.  There is also this misconception that people who make technology are dorks.  Does this guy sound like a dork?  Nowadays I see so many people wanting to be spoon fed.  I can assure you that if the Sven were alive today he would feed you a bootjack or provide you with an island, a gun with one bullet and a case of rum.  I’ll close with some words from a song by Blood Axis called Comrade:

To every sailor the gods have given a comrade
While one sleeps the other keeps watch on the bridge
When one doubts the other gives him his faith
When one falls the other discovers the oasis of ice for both of them

 

When my comrade loses faith I laugh confidently
When my comrade sleeps I keep watch for him
When my comrade falls I fight on for the both of us
Because to every sailor the gods have given a comrade
Hey!

If you loose heart, I’ll laugh joyfully
And if you sleep, I’ll keep watch for you
And if you fall, I’ll fight on for the both of us
Because to every warrior the gods have given a comrade
Hey!

If you fall I will discover the oasis of ice for both of us
Hey!

Hey!

I truly miss my comrade.

As we used to say “One day as a lion instead of a life as a sheep.”

Go Big Or Go Home!

ALL HAIL STEVEN SWENSON!

Posted on : By : TCTJr Posted in : Direct Thoughts|General Discussion|General Technology

Revisiting the T’s with Talent

I usually don’t track “the news” or “chatter” but the recent Facebook acquisition of NextStop is about talent.  Possibly geolocation and hyper-local data but more about who is there and why they are there.  I was having this discussion with several persons the other day.  Companies buy other companies for talent, data aggregation and possibly technology.  The reason I say possibly technology is that most companies do not care about the tech – mostly talent.  I have a term for the companies that move our tech world:  The Folks Inside The Firewall.  The Folks Inside The FireWall (TFITF) already have a long term strategic view of where they want to go 5,10,20,50 years.  Take this to the bank.  In a blog a couple of years go I discussed the Three T’s of a Startup.  I listed talent as number one.  Why?  I prefer quality over quantity.  I prefer the elite performers.  I’d rather have two A game coders than 10 posers.  I located a recent plot of distributed and related coding jobs.  While the plot focuses on Casandra rest assured that the areas of machine learning, data mining, natural language processing and semantics are going to skyrocket.  10 years ago we were worried about connections, storage and compute resources.  This is no longer the case.  We are revisiting this world – yet again – same algorithms – more data.  It reminds me of the hey day of digital signal processing engineers.

As I discussed in my previous blog Three T’s of a Startup many times the companies do not even use the acquired technology.  So please do not take it personally when your great code base is destroyed.  Philosophically Art is meant to be created and destroyed.  The money and vesting schedule will make the destruction worthwhile – trust me.  If you want to go be idealistic go right ahead.  The smart ones wait and vest.  Colloquially called resting and vesting (RnV).  It is a great way to past the time.   That said this brings up the question of is it really about the software now?  Clearly, GOOG does not need a geo-loc technology nor are they going to be a travel agency.  Patents?  Possibly.  In that same blog I discussed how many executives at these companies just say put together a team, write some code, create some provisional patents.  If the stuff halfway does what your roadmap says we will probably buy you.   Look for my next blog on this subject called Mercenaries For Hire – Have compilers – will not travel.

Until Then,

Go Big Or Go Home!

 

Posted on : By : TCTJr Posted in : Direct Thoughts|General Discussion|General Technology

Money It’s A Hit!

 

Why We Do IT

“If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose- because it contains all the others- the fact that they were the people who created the phrase “to make money”. No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity- to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created.” ~ Ms. Ayn Rand

I’m not sure about you, but every time I am asked why I do what I do – I always think it sure beats digging ditches.  I mean really folks let’s be honest here.  Would you be doing anything else?  Software is the most scalable profession this world has ever known and in this post-July 4th blog I was thinking – wow America created the industry.  The Epicenter of it all.  I believe that creating software is the epitome of The American Dream.  An Idea, A Computing Device and a Connection.  It is complete freedom.  There are no rules.  The only rules are mandated via the compilers and processors.  The one-to-many multi-cast aspect of creating software and now DataSpaces is completely scalable.  Doctors, Lawyers, and in some cases Stock Brokers are not scalable as many times it is a one to one relationship and is a time allotment with respect to target audience.  If your creation is a hit then there is a non-linearity for scale that cannot be duplicated.  Then comes the after affect.  Money.

Most do not set out to say – “Hey I am going to make some money.”  Nope in the software world you say, “Hey wouldnt if be cool if <insert idea here>.”  I am really getting tired of people trying to soften the aspect of Extreme Capitalism in the software industry.  So for arguments sake which I enjoy let us do a little play acting:

Entrepreneur: I am creating a Data As a Service company for Socnets

Venture Capitalist: So why did you found the Acme DaaS Corporation?

Entrepreneur: To save the White Hooded Wood Owls from extinction.

Venture Capitalist: Wow that is great I can definitely see my 10x return on this $10M Series A investment.  Whoo Hoo!  Lets do it! Woot!

Not realistic huh?

So lets step back here in a minute.  If you want to be a philanthropist and have not inherited a ton of money then creating a really hot software company with a great exit is a way to get there so you can save the White Hooded Wood Owl. (DISCLAIMER: We are not being selective of wood owls please find the brown one here. In fact I do not think there is such thing as a white hooded wood owl).

So what should you say?  Well Mr./Ms. VC I want to sell this and make a ton of…wait….keep guessing…. MONEY!

Don’t posture.  Money Rules the game.

Until Then,

Go Big Or Go Home.

Posted on : By : TCTJr Posted in : Computing_History|Direct Thoughts

Man You Are Lucky

“Wow must be nice, you’re lucky!”

For the successful entrepreneur how many times have you heard this? In the world of “ustas” I used to get really mad about that when someone would say this to me or someone that I knew.  I suppose jealousy and envy cloud the mind.

I have a good friend who is an accomplished martial artist and weapons expert with multiple level black belts in various forms.  He is fond of telling his advanced students training up in the hills in some remote local, “Luck has nothing to do with why you are here.”

There are some who say that having an exit for your startup is complete luck.  Ok fine.  So be it.  We can argue that one later.  What I want to discuss today is what happens post-acquisition with the founders and principles of a startup that has been acquired with the proper frameworks in place.  Lets take a recent example of the high profile IPO of Tesla. The PayPal Mafia is a great example of how to take care of the people that make the company successful.  It is also a great example of how the machine works.  During my last startup here on the right coast I was continually asked why I started the company?  Well lets see: take an idea, create some software, sell it, make money.  Money, Oh yea Money.  Actually what I stated was to create a proper venture capital firm much like a Y-Combinator but with more cash.  A good rule of thumb is to not create a company specifically for the company but create it for the next scenario.  the paypal founders rewarded their people.  Musk only had 11.5% at the time of the 1.5B dollar sale. Yet he got back together with his people and started something else and did it again - Rinse - Cycle-Repeat. It is estimated the collective PayPal Mafia now manages30B in tech funds and companies.   I continually see people who have founded company or are founding companies saying they will not give up the equity.  Your choice.  You must give to get, Yin and Yang, Push Me – Pull You.

PLEASE READ: REWARD THE ELITE PERFORMERS – HEAVILY – THEY WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN!

During the last go around I had a good friend of mine who has amazing experience come up from a semi-retirement from St. Marteen Island.  He called me from the harbor club where he landed and said, “I dont need a salary or contract I just want Equity. We can figure it out later, lets start coding.”

Take that to the bank all day.  I gave him multi-digit percentages.  So for those that are trying to get something off the ground or after years cannot scale because you cannot find the right people.  Give the blood.  Give the equity.  It is not luck.

I’ll leave you with a quote:

” The inferior man’s reasons for hating knowledge are not hard to discern. He hates it because it is complex — because it puts an unbearable burden upon his meager capacity for taking in ideas. Thus his search is always for short cuts. ” ~ H.L. Mencken

Until Then,

Go Big Or Go Home!

@jaxsoncreole