mvalente.eu/mv.* Heavy Mental Stuff

Path: mv.asterisco.pt!mvalente
From: mvale…@gmail.com (Mario Valente)
Newsgroups: mv
Subject: Twitters Forthcoming Mother of All Whales
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 09 13:41:21 GMT

“Dunbar’s number is a theoretical cognitive limit to the
number of people (150) with whom one can maintain stable
social relationships.
Proponents assert that numbers larger than this generally
require more restricted rules, laws, and enforced norms to
maintain a stable, cohesive group”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number

“‘The Tragedy of the Commons’ describes a dilemma in which
multiple individuals acting independently in their own
self-interest can ultimately destroy a shared limited resource
even where it is clear that it is not in anyone’s long term
interest for this to happen”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

“A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy.
Four Things to Design For:
– handles the user can invest in
– a way for there to be members in good standing
– you need barriers to participation
– a way to spare the group from scale”

http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html

Even though I’m a big proponent and defender of social
software ( http://is.gd/mHsv ), I think in the long run
Twitter has no enduring value and is destined to FAIL in
whale size proportion. Observation of the medium in the
last couple of months and in the last couple of days tends
to confirm my hypothesis.

— MV

Path: mv.asterisco.pt!mvalente
From: mfvale…@gmail.com (Mario Valente)
Newsgroups: mv
Subject: Do Ser XL – ou, Sobre os Quarenta
Date: Sun, 08 Mar 09 17:13:21 GMT

Faz por estes dias 2 anos que (re)iniciei este blog, 1 ano desde
que deixei o ITIJ/MJ, 1 ano desde que fiz 40 anos (o que significa
que daqui a umas semanas passo a ter 41) e cerca de 1 mes desde que
abandonei o Twitter.

Estranhamente (ou nao), estes factos estao interligados…

Tenho aqui escrito pouco neste ultimo ano. Por varias razoes.

Uma e o facto de ter usado mais o Twitter que, como disse, resolvi
abandonar ha cerca de 1 mes. O imediatismo do Twitter consome a nossa
atencao e elimina muita da vontade em explanar raciocinios de uma
forma mais estruturada e coerente. Foi interessante usa-lo como meio
durante este ultimo ano mas, em ultima analise, achei (e acho) que
e um meio que nao tem futuro, embora haja por ai visionarios de meia
tijela que acham que e a melhor coisa desde o pao cortado as fatias.
Na realidade o Twitter e a versao 2.0 do IRC e , como o IRC, esta
condenado a morrer, substituido por outra qualquer novidade. Essa
fatalidade deve-se nao so ao meio em si mas, acima de tudo, devido
a chegada da maralha que o usa como chat e como feira de vaidades
e palco de insultos. Este filme ja se viu antes noutros meios: assim
de repente ocorrem-me os chats das BBS ha 20 anos atras, a Usenet
ha 10 anos atras ou o Slashdot ha 5 ou 6. A nivel mais local o mesmo
filme foi visto no Gildot ou nos “planetas” whatever.
O futuro o dira. Mas preconizo que dentro de 1 ou 2 anos o Twitter
sera impossivel de utilizar, consequencia de um ruido interminavel
e de uma multidao de utilizadores. Atras disso vira tambem o spam.
Na maralha que agora chega ao Twitter incluo os cognoscenti, literatti,
digerati e outras inteligencias superiores (escritores, actores,
politicos, jornalistas, etc).
Como outros meios, o Twitter tem ou teve valor enquanto estava
restringido a uma comunidade que entendia como devia ser usado e
que criava por sua via algum valor acrescentado. A medida que vao
entrando os ignoramus a quantidade de informacao util diminui. E,
a certa altura, acaba por se chegar a conclusao (como eu cheguei)
que mais vale a pena abandonar o barco. Acho que so se deve fazer
parte de uma comunidade enquanto se produz e se recebe valor; e/ou
enquanto a comunidade e o meio podem servir como veiculo de troca
de ideias e opinioes consequentes. Quando se contribui mais do que
o que se recebe (especialmente se se recebem piadas, insultos ou
ataques ad hominem) ou entao quando o meio e usado para ruido
inconsequente (insultos, conversas de cafe, vaidosismos, gracolas,
oportunismos, etc) o melhor e desligar. A certa altura passa a ser
conversa de putas de esquina. Depois de 1 mes de ter deixado de
participar activamente e de apenas observar (ha outras formas de
seguir o que se passa no Twitter sem ser com follower e com
following), nao posso dizer que esteja arrependido: a maior parte
do tempo e conversa de putas de esquina.

A outra razao para ter “suspendido” o blogging prende-se com
o facto de ter decidido que, apos ter saido do ITIJ/MJ, iria
manter um profile com menos notoriedade, pelo menos durante 1 ano.
Por um lado nao e do meu estilo aproveitar-me de uma oportunidade
que me foi dada e utiliza-la para botar faladura e armar em opinion
maker. Por outro lado nao quis dar azo a comentarios e potenciais
embaracos, tao faceis de criar hoje em dia (particularmente pela
comunicacao social que deturpa o contexto e o significado como
forma de criar noticias).
Para alem disso queria usar os meus 40 anos para reflectir
sobre a minha vida, o que tenho feito e o que queria fazer a
seguir.

Paradoxalmente (ou pelo contrario), umas das razoes que me
levaram a re(iniciar) o blog ha 2 anos (2007) teve a ver com o
facto de precisar de algum escape para aquele que eu sabia ser
o meu ultimo ano no ITIJ, ao fim de quase 3 anos de comissao
de servico. De facto, quando aceitei e assinei essa mesma
comissao de servico (e a consequente responsabilidade), tinha
para mim a partida que nao iria prolonga-la para alem dos ditos
3 anos (2005-2008).
Precisamente por saber que em Abril de 2008 faria 40 anos
e nao queria passa-los integrado na Administracao Publica.
Havia algo de imobilismo, de conformismo e de definitivo que
eu nao queria que acontecesse. Houve, claro, outras razoes para
ter saido do ITIJ/MJ (maioritariamente pessoais) mas isso fica
para outro post.

Portanto: (re)iniciei o blog como forma de escape as
pressoes do cargo no MJ e para documentar essa fase da minha
vida (39/40); deixei o MJ em parte devido aos meus 40 anos e
suspendi o blog para me distanciar do MJ; nao bloguei tanto por
causa do Twitter e para reflectir sobre a vida, o Universo e
tudo o resto. Esta explicada a interligacao. E uma boa altura
para retomar o blogging, se bem que nao sei bem se vai haver
alguem a ler isto: os fornecedores do ITIJ ja nao estao
interessados; a antiga homepage esta em branco e nao vai
mudar… Talvez via RSS; boa sorte.

“Crise da meia idade?”, perguntarao alguns. Visto do
meu lado nao. Nao pelo menos no sentido que e costumeiro
dar-lhe. Nao me deram subitamente ganas de comprar um
Ferrari (uma Harley sim…), vontade de ser pasteleiro
ou atracoes por miudas de 20 anos. Muito pelo contrario.

Os meus 40 anos serviram mais para eu consolidar e confirmar
aquilo que realmente sou: um teenager crescidote, ainda
fascinado pela tecnologia e pelas possibilidades que ela
representa; que continua a pensar em novos negocios e em
abanar o barco; que continua a gostar de tocar guitarra e
ouvir heavy metal; que ainda acha piada a video games e que
ainda consegue dar baile a alguns putos; que esta muito bem
casado, mesmo depois de 15 anos de casamento.

Passar a ter 40 anos foi para mim aquilo que para muitos
acontece aos 18: passei a ser grande. A ser XL. A ser adulto.
Andei 20 anos, dos 20 aos 40, plenamento convicto de que
era um puto. E agora estou plenamente convencido que os
proximos 20 anos e que vao ser o melhor periodo da minha
vida. Onde a minha experiencia como tecnologista e como
empreendedor vao poder servir para criar e ajudar a criar
coisas com outra dimensao. Quem esteve no TakeOff 2008
sabe do que e que estou a falar: a melhor ideia e aquela
que nos mete mais medo e que toda a gente diz para nao a
fazermos…

— MV

Path: mv.asterisco.pt!mvalente
From: mvale…@ruido-visual.pt (Mario Valente)
Newsgroups: mv
Subject: Codebits 2008
Date: Sun, 16 Nov 08 22:03:21 GMT

Another Codebits has gone by. Its always some nice time
off from your standard daily life, but age is starting to
get to me. Like Savatage says: “And though we still stay
up all night, the mornings arent quite as bright”. Plus
the novelty is starting to wear off and I dont find it as
interesting anymore. Add to that the fact that beyond a
certain point you just start to look ridiculous, like those
parents who go with their kids to nightclubs, and the fact
that it becomes pretty obvious that the kids really dont feel
comfortable with you being there. Its very likely that I wont
be there next year…

Anyway, once again a nice hacking/programming contest. The
number of bozos, clowns and wannabes has gone up but the jury
was able to go through 81 projects and find a few valuable ones.

Out of all of them, some definitely stand out, although they’re
not “investment” grade:

– Project 2 (the “Quiz Show” setup, using hacked Buzz controllers)
and Project 20 (the winner, code and demo for using the Open Moko
accelerometer) deserve major kudos for hack value. I wouldnt
invest in them though.

– Project 43 (“Million Dollar World”, a selling pixel space in a
world map project cloning the Million Dollar Page 1×1 pixel
ad space sellout) and Project 58 (“FotoLOL”, a mashup of random
fotos and random post titles that generates some funny situations)
have some money-making value, but always dependent on ad based
revenue and not much of a business model. I definitely wouldnt
invest in them but their authors should go forward with the
implementation, before someone else does it. Hell *I* would clone
the “Million Dollar World” this week, if it wasnt for the fact
that I have some principles (unlike others who feed on others
ideas and dont even credit them back)

The ones that stood out where I would think about putting money
in (after discussing several issues, including business model):

– Project 1, “Na Taxa Verde”, from Codebits07 winners, has some
potential. Its basically an invoice tracker for freelancers that
could get some traction and income with aditional features (like
expense tracking and tax advisory)

– Project 12, “FeedBits”, is a feedreader which includes a
Bayesian filter. Lots of talk around something like this and even
similar projects, but nothing that really does it well. Could solve
a personal itch of mine and could even sell some copies (maybe
through the iphone/android app markets, at a small price)

– Project 13, “GoodActions”, is sort of a social network for
do-gooders to track their nice deeds and to get suggestions. It
has enough “touchy feely”, “new age”, “social responsibility”
involved that might just make it gain a following within the
socialist vegetarian animal lover crowd. Not my sorta people but
hey… as long as they have money to spend (and it seems they
are the upcoming psychosocial segment) I’m with it bro…

– Project 33, “World Wide Apps”, is from a friend of mine that
wants every site to be wikipedia-like and have both content *and*
source code editable. Its wacky enough to interest a fringe of
users (and companies… yum) and to generate its own plataform and
ecosystem. Curiously enough a few hours later after discussing the
project and seeing it presented I found out something very much
like it implemented in serverside Javascript, no less (SSJS is a
personal fave right now). See http://reasonablysmart.com/

– Project 70, “Sapo Quest”, is a set of quest/games/challenges
to be done in real life by completing a set of steps or stages
while being tracked (using RFID at Codebits). The idea could very
well have some nice applications for alternate reality games
(which are played using your real environment), namely by using
other types of tracking (GPS, mobile). I have some business model
ideas around thus type of alternate reality game that dont
involve your typical game and gamer that could generate some nice
cash flows.

All in all, I hope that Codebits happens again next year. A big
thumbs up for Celso and for all the people at Sapo team that make
Codebits happen. Maybe someday the portuguese web community will
live up to your standards and deserve all the personal sacrifices.

I’m sad to say
It’s time to go
But until we meet again along the road
Remember this, on your journey home
When you hear the thunder roar, you’re not alone
We wish you well
We wish you well
In times of trouble, may your heart be strong
We wish you well
We wish you well
Until we meet again
We wish you well
– Whitesnake, “We Wish You Well”

— MV

Path: mv.asterisco.pt!mvalente
From: mvale…@ruido-visual.pt (Mario Valente)
Newsgroups: mv
Subject: Golden Oldies
Date: Sat, 27 Sep 08 19:31:21 GMT

A long, long time ago, around 1978, I started listening
to music. My first memories of music is stuff like Patrick
Hernandez Born to be Alive, Boomtown Rats Tell Me Why I Dont
Like Mondays, Pink Floyds The Wall and Kiss I Was Made for
Loving You.

But the very very very first set of records that I listened
to was a Readers Digest box set, bought by my parents, called
the Golden Hit Parade:

http://www.discogs.com/release/991081

Lots of good stuff in the playlists, true classics, one
hit wonders and standard top 40 fare. But, amidst it all,
my favourites were the “weird” songs, stuff that you have
probably never heard about and, if you hear it, might not
want to hear ever again :-)

So here’s some wacko songs that I still find great fun
to listen to…

Lord Rockingham’s XI – Hoots Mon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7Ymov6JhRE

The Marcels – Blue Moon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJavHuHAjgY

Jimmy Dean – Big Bad John
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mR9dDdUmdtU

The Sweet – Ballroom Blitz
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrBDivsSe3k

Focus – Sylvia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4V26-oscwDU

Heinz – Just like EDDIE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqRLR-EtlEk

Jet Harris and Tony Meehan– Diamonds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZbfzm6voVk

Yep, I AM a geezer, I’ll nick ya…

— MV

Path: mv.asterisco.pt!mvalente
From: mvale…@ruido-visual.pt (Mario Valente)
Newsgroups: mv
Subject: Serverside Javascript Tracemonkey Performance – Part V
Date: Wed, 27 Aug 08 01:50:21 GMT

Finally had some time free to run the Sunspider tests on
serverside Javascript 1.6 and JS1.8tracemonkey. The results are
listed below.

http://svn.webkit.org/repository/webkit/trunk/SunSpider/tests/

Performance wise there’s not much of notice. Results are
basically in line with Brendan Eich’s results for browserside
tests.

http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/roadmap/archives/2008/08/tracemonkey_javascript_lightsp.html

One thing is of notice though: JS1.8 throws a segfault in
at least 5 of the tests. I dont have much time to debug right
now, but a strace shows that the last system call was a call
to gettimeofday, after a bunch of read()s containing js source
code lines. Maybe a call to date functions… or the fact that
I patched and compiled in the not-recomended jsfile.c File object
support ;-)… Will have to look into it later…

—————————————
3d-cube.js
JS 1.6
real 0.59
user 0.55
sys 0.01

JS 1.8
real 0.08
user 0.06
sys 0.01
—————————————
3d-morph.js
JS 1.6
real 0.69
user 0.61
sys 0.04

JS 1.8
real 0.06
user 0.04
sys 0.02
—————————————
3d-raytrace.js
JS 1.6
real 0.47
user 0.41
sys 0.02

JS 1.8
./perftest: line 1: 13589 Segmentation fault js18 -j $f
real 0.01
user 0.01
sys 0.00
—————————————
access-binary-trees.js
JS 1.6
real 0.27
user 0.22
sys 0.03

JS 1.8
real 0.10
user 0.08
sys 0.01
—————————————
access-fannkuch.js
JS 1.6
real 0.97
user 0.93
sys 0.00

JS 1.8
./perftest: line 1: 13593 Segmentation fault js18 -j $f
real 0.03
user 0.02
sys 0.00
—————————————
access-nbody.js
JS 1.6
real 0.60
user 0.44
sys 0.06

JS 1.8
real 0.07
user 0.05
sys 0.01
—————————————
access-nsieve.js
JS 1.6
real 0.56
user 0.50
sys 0.00

JS 1.8
real 0.03
user 0.03
sys 0.01
—————————————
bitops-3bit-bits-in-byte.js
JS 1.6
real 0.26
user 0.26
sys 0.00

JS 1.8
real 0.00
user 0.00
sys 0.00
—————————————
bitops-bits-in-byte.js
JS 1.6
real 0.40
user 0.38
sys 0.00

JS 1.8
real 0.01
user 0.01
sys 0.00
—————————————
bitops-bitwise-and.js
JS 1.6
real 0.34
user 0.29
sys 0.00

JS 1.8
real 0.03
user 0.01
sys 0.01
—————————————
bitops-nsieve-bits.js
JS 1.6
real 0.66
user 0.56
sys 0.00

JS 1.8
real 0.04
user 0.00
sys 0.00
—————————————
controlflow-recursive.js
JS 1.6
real 0.14
user 0.12
sys 0.00

JS 1.8
real 0.07
user 0.07
sys 0.00
—————————————
crypto-aes.js
JS 1.6
real 0.46
user 0.32
sys 0.04

JS 1.8
./perftest: line 1: 13609 Segmentation fault js18 -j $f
real 0.01
user 0.00
sys 0.00
—————————————
crypto-md5.js
JS 1.6
real 0.38
user 0.27
sys 0.01

JS 1.8
./perftest: line 1: 13611 Segmentation fault js18 -j $f
real 0.02
user 0.02
sys 0.00
—————————————
crypto-sha1.js
JS 1.6
real 0.35
user 0.25
sys 0.01

JS 1.8
real 0.02
user 0.02
sys 0.00
—————————————
date-format-tofte.js
JS 1.6
real 1.03
user 0.69
sys 0.09

JS 1.8
./perftest: line 1: 13615 Segmentation fault js18 -j $f
real 0.08
user 0.07
sys 0.00
—————————————
date-format-xparb.js
JS 1.6
real 1.74
user 1.37
sys 0.17

JS 1.8
real 0.19
user 0.15
sys 0.02
—————————————
math-cordic.js
JS 1.6
real 0.63
user 0.51
sys 0.00

JS 1.8
real 0.05
user 0.04
sys 0.00
—————————————
math-partial-sums.js
JS 1.6
real 0.42
user 0.36
sys 0.02

JS 1.8
real 0.03
user 0.03
sys 0.00
—————————————
math-spectral-norm.js
JS 1.6
real 0.28
user 0.21
sys 0.04

JS 1.8
real 0.02
user 0.01
sys 0.00
—————————————
regexp-dna.js
JS 1.6
real 0.60
user 0.50
sys 0.05

JS 1.8
real 0.37
user 0.33
sys 0.01
—————————————
string-base64.js
JS 1.6
real 1.10
user 0.94
sys 0.07

JS 1.8
real 0.03
user 0.01
sys 0.02
—————————————
string-fasta.js
JS 1.6
real 0.77
user 0.66
sys 0.05

JS 1.8
real 0.23
user 0.20
sys 0.02
—————————————
string-tagcloud.js
JS 1.6
real 0.63
user 0.58
sys 0.00

JS 1.8
real 0.23
user 0.19
sys 0.02
—————————————
string-unpack-code.js
JS 1.6
real 0.54
user 0.48
sys 0.01

JS 1.8
real 0.33
user 0.28
sys 0.04
—————————————
string-validate-input.js
JS 1.6
real 0.43
user 0.35
sys 0.04

JS 1.8
real 0.10
user 0.07
sys 0.02

— MV