Faster, Faster WussyCat, WussyCat!

"I never try anything, I just do it!" - Tura Satana, in Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill

I played a couple of Iranian students at pool at last night. I was buzzed but I kicked their ass, yeah! One old American and three shots of jaegermeister still beats two Iranian college students, five to zero, yeah!

But I didn't get the girl. A bit too much to ask out of a weird Canadian multicultural experience... plus they were way too young. Legal? yes. Appealing? Yes! Beddable? No, I think not.

Off to Idaho for awhile.
But I'll sit here at the Rialto and push a few more pool games before I go!

Leaving Kirkland

I found three Kirklands. Biker Kirkland with distributed pockets of older, rougher, motorcyclists; their moustaches and sideburns conceal attitudes but reveal smiles. They lack the pompous judgements of the Mormons or Religious Right but I like the honesty of this Kirkland.

Yuppy Kirkland is a pretentious layer of real estate agents, lawyers, bleached blonds in plastic surgery; all calculating that next dollar towards fancy cars or images, but they provide businesses and stability.

Spoiled college kids are Kirkland Three. They lack the quiet roughness of the bikers, and the calculating vapor of the lawyers but have honest energy, noise, show a synchronicity and synthesis.

I see Kirkland differently after three months here. It's sedate, integrated community. Placid and dull at times, but if you submerge into the undercurrent of community, a lot goes on, quietly, under the waves.

I met Jaimee last night while I was typing. We wandering from restaurant to restaurant, kissing and caresssing until we reached the Wilde Rover, where a double-order of clams unbuttoned Jaimee's blouse and she manuvered my hands to her engorged hot spots. The staff politely ignored our offenses while customers covered smiles, sneaking an occasional glance and comment.

I lost my wallet, she lost her work portfolio, but our detective work recovered the missing items, but not our interrupted libido. I had my brother's house filled with kids, she had a similar problem and a hotel never entered my mind.

Will Billy Beck save the world? Almost certainly not. Methodologies that assume perfection fail. Methodologies that assume failure, that account for failure, are the systems that succeeded.

This is why Billy has no successes, except for a dwindling cadre of true believers.

So.
Ho Ho.
Off to Portland I go.

J2EE, SOA and P2P Cost Curves

Many organizations start with an ad-hoc methodology for their IT infrastucture, and over time it acts as a point-to-point system. If we define transaction costs as the sum of all costs over time for development, maintenance and operation, then a P2P infrastructure resembles an exponential (n-squared) curve against organization size (as a proxy for total complexity).

J2EE introduces a centralized hierarchy and standardized APIs, which impose higher startup costs, but which increase at a flatter rate for larger organizations.

Service Oriented Architecture introduces a formal message backplane which functions as a mediator, and it's probable that SOA's cost curve is flatter than J2EE. This graph shows how framework cost might be associated to organization size:

For small organizations, the cost-effective choice might be LAMP or simple programming tools.

The choice for mid-sized companies is probably J2EE.

Although SOA and J2EE aren't direct competitors, SOA has no dependencies on a J2EE infrastructure. For larger companies, it's certainly possible that alternate implementations of SOA might replace marginal J2EE installations.

The Way To Eden

Stardate 5832.3. The Enterprise has pursued several stolen housing units on an unauthorized heading into the Option ARM zone and engaged tractor beams to prevent further movement. Our initial radio contact was with Dr. Casey Severin, leader of the flipper gang, who demonstrated disrespect for reality and demanded be to taken to Eden.

Medical scans reveal many flippers to be in good health except for Dr. Severin, who is shown to have the Synthecoccus Novae virus, an accident of Federal Reserve policy. Dr. Severin's infection has spread to several of his high school friends, manifested by their shared delusion of a "Rich Dad" savior idol.

Dr. Severin is now isolated in detention block C, but several of his followers are unaccounted for and are considered security threats.

Yellow alert is in effect. We await orders from High Admiral Bernanke on Dr. Severin's disposition.

Kirk out.

Poker Meme Fizzling Out

Methodology

One year ago, I published this poker memegraph -

How things can change in a year. My three latest sources (Google Trends, BlogPulse.com and Meme Miner) agree... the poker craze peaked in popularity sometime within the past year. It's interesting that the poker meme exhaustion seems to be in tandem with the housing bubble exhaustion.

Note: The Blogpulse graph seems shakey, there's probably not enough long-term data to account for erratic peaks and valleys in the "poker" meme.

---

Tell me what to do, D.

YiYamFahZing4Kosher Emergency Transmission

Starlog Update - Despite rising radio radiation, the colonists on YiYamFahZing4Kosher system refuse to evacuate. According to their religious beliefs, a powerful God, "Rich Dad", will appear from the Heavens to save them, bringing forth lowered interest rates, St. Joseph statues and a flood of 14-year-old subprime buyers. Heat and radiation levels continue to rise, as well as option ARM reset payments.

The Prime Directive prevents us from direct intervention. We can only sit here and watch these poor devils fry, but I will NOT put my ship and crew into ARM's way. Uh-Que-ru, contact Star Fleet, inform them that the space around YiYamFahZing4Kosher is dangerously awash with radio radiation and loan-sharking operations. As Captain, I'm requesting a pullback to the outer Rancho, New Mexico ring. Perhaps we can salvage a few of those poor bastards after the initial nova burst.

Kirk out!

YiYamFahZing4Kosher Mission Update

The gravitational and financial anomalies surrounding the YiYamFahZing4Kosher system have attracted deadly concentrations of radio radiation. In accordance with Star Fleet directive #3X-4a, I am countermanding Star Fleet's evacuation orders and holding off at a safe distance from imploding planets within the system.

For now, we'll record the implosion for scientific study. The native population believes that a mythical icon named "Rich Dad" will descend from the heavens to save them. Now monitoring all channels for his appearance.

Log Status - Supplemental

Star Fleet has detected unusually unstable gravitational and financial forces around the YiYamFahZing4Kosher system. They're requesting our immediate presence and evacuation assistance....

Science Officer Spock estimates that this fustercluck has less than six months before implosion. Our mission? To rescue as many natives as possible without endangering ourselves or our credit rating.

Kirk out.

Rescue Mission To The USS SeattleRei Blog

Stardate 38843ja34u1-9u342 -

While enroute to the Vhortanic nebula, we received a distress signal from the USS SeattleReiBlog that two of its prime properties had lost power and were losing altitude. Last update was two weeks ago and now, ominously, we receive only silence. We are diverting from our current course to verify the SeattleRei's last known position and status.

Kirk out.

The Banshee Blues

I have my Defcon 2007 submission figured out!!!!

Detecting Search Engine Advertising Fraud

Tactical Fraud Analysis
Strategic Analysis

It's perfect. It uses the lead-in of Meme theory from the pre-existing presentations and evolves them into a real-world security issue. It's fricking perfect. I'll have to rehash it a little. The odds are good that third-party documentation and confirmations will be available by July, too.

But I have a goal for August, 2007.
Defcon again.

Thank you, Casey!

Bewitched

"We all make mistakes. Of course, when we make mistakes they call it evil. When God makes mistakes, they call it... nature. So whaddya think? Women... a mistake... or DID HE DO IT TO US ON PURPOSE?"

- Witches Of Eastwick

Ideospheric Introspection

Recently I've used graphs from Google Trends and Nielson's Blogpulse to bolster or refute trends which I've detected with MemeMiner.

Each tool occupies a unique portion of the Ideosphere and a confirmation from all three is probably widespread trend. This "set theory" diagram demonstrates their interaction. Google Trends is the set of Google's user queries while Blogpulse is a set of blog entries. These sets might have an intersection while Dejanews is completely independent of both.

Sub-bandwidths of the Ideosphere can be categorized into five types -

An Ideospheric bandwidth (or "channel") either represents a certain meme (and its sub-memes) or it does not. If it represents a meme, it can denote either a positive or negative connotation. Unallocated bandwidth has three potential states -

a) bandwidth which was never exposed to the current meme

b) bandwidth which actively avoids the current meme

c) bandwidth which accepted the current meme and discarded it in favor of a more desirable meme.

Positive and negative connotations are detectable by associated keywords (i.e. a semantic map).

The cause of unallocated bandwidth is trickier to determine, particularly for memes are which actively avoided. Today's case-in-point is "deficit". In spite of massive increases in consumer credit, the Federal deficit and trade deficit, the general public avoids talk and thought of "deficits" -

The absence of information is often meaningful... if it can be detected.

Zune Meme Rerun

Previous Zune meme analysis

Updated Methodology

Microsoft's iPod competitor, Zune, is still not picking up mindshare or buzz traction. Note the similarity of the "Zune" meme's initial spike and falloff to the Breitbart meme (possible artificial manipulation of Internet propagation). Memes travel through the Ideosphere with finite velocity, it can be difficult to increase meme velocity or penetration with marketing hype.

Air America Meme - Another Successful Prediction

I predicted Air America's demise over one year ago based on this graph, trend is confirmed by Google Trends -

Methodology

SOA Methodology, Part 1

Why do you want Service-Oriented Architecture?

To reduce cost (transaction costs).
To increase reliability.

Most companies, particularly the larger ones, have "organic" information systems which were grown over time, not designed. These systems embody a history of decisions which were appropriate for the company at a certain time and size. But many of these decisions conflict with each other or with future direction. A high-level view of the IT structure shows unnecessary transaction boundaries that create latency, data redundancy, duplication and excessive complexity -

Most companies run past the "economy of scale" of their infrastructure. Real costs are always higher than the theoretical cost of a designed system. As this "economy of scale" mismatch increases, costs increase too fast and redesign becomes more attractive. The Service-Oriented Architecture is today's redesign paradigm. In theory, it should create an integrated and seamless IT nervous system -

That's the theory. The reality of a redesign is different, but still a significant improvement over the legacy system -

A primary consideration in infrastructure design is to minimize complexity whenever possible, in spite of political or legacy issues. The "SOA Methodology" aims to improve project success by minimizing complexity.

Part 2