Tuesday 12 June 2012

Analyzing Analogies: Prologue

Several years ago, in a different life almost, when I was trying (and ultimately failing) to do innovative and interesting stuff in aerospace, I had an interesting conversation with an older and wiser aerospace entrepreneur.
At one point he remarked that satellites have been getting cheaper because they're like computers, while space launch rockets are like airplanes and that's why they're not getting any cheaper.

I agree with some aspects of this and disagree with others, but the important thing I took from the conversation is not about rockets and spaceships. It's about comparing things.

The question is:
What makes an analogy meaningful?

Saturday 9 June 2012

"We especially enjoyed the appendix"

Project White Dragon has reached an important milestone, unfortunately the milestone is being selected as a winner in the USAF competition and I didn't win.

I did however get a great review, snippets of which (like the confusing title of this post) are after the break...

Saturday 19 May 2012

Mark Zuckerberg is a...

...capitalist fascist pig in hipster clothes!

Oh yes I got censored on facebook!
The awful awful (truly) awful comment I made is past the break.

Friday 4 May 2012

The Insignificance of Ideas

A few years ago my friend and partner O and I had an argument over some idea which I considered a potential solution but which was according to him "an idea for an idea for an idea". (FYI Hebrew has no word for "concept")
This annoyed me a great deal, not only because he was putting down our idea but because I felt there was something inherently flawed with this regression, lacking any definition and clarity, beginning or end.

Some time later I realized the key to this unease lay in my knowledge of TRIZ and the way it links problems and solutions.

Monday 16 April 2012

Metaverse Rising: The Global Economy

Continued from Passover and the Freedom of the Metaverse.
In the previous post I discussed how Steam allows people to be the common thread uniting different online virtual worlds.

Now let's talk about the other element which connects virtual worlds to each other and to the real world: money!

Sunday 15 April 2012

While I'm off sick...

I'm off sick but Valve is restless... it seems the company which is featured in my ongoing case study of the evolution towards the Metaverse is taking more definite steps towards immersive VR: Valve reveals mystery hardware project: wearable computing

Now I wish I had stayed in touch with John Carmack when I was still in the rocket business... I'll have to find the archived emails from before Gmail came along... *groan*

I'll be back soon with the rest of the metaverse story. Don't go far!

Saturday 7 April 2012

Not the Samsung Galaxy Note

Have you noticed the classic edition of The Meaning of Liff has the same length and width as the Samsung Galaxy Note?

By the way, this is a stealth post which I will not be announcing anywhere! How did you find it? You clever so and so!

Passover and the Freedom of the Metaverse

Happy passover!


In case you don't know, passover is a Jewish holiday commemorating the exodus from Egypt and is commonly called the freedom holiday, referring to the release of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt. This is a good a reason as any to write about the metaverse and freedom.

Some background:

Free Allegiance is the best game you've never played. I have played it and will continue to play until it becomes illegal... at which point I'll still play but vehemently deny it.

The Metaverse is a rather poorly defined concept which usually means a shared virtual universe, a collections of worlds possibly including non-immersive content (the "flat" web) and maybe even boring old regular reality.

Friday 30 March 2012

Star Wars Quiz: Episode V

Welcome to the dungeon's torture chamber!
To get out, just tell me who was the first person to say "I have a bad feeling about this" in The Empire Strikes Back.

Quickly, before Lucas changes the answer!

Thursday 29 March 2012

The Sword of Destiny


Forged from a tree grown deep in the mountains of Qìdān, kept hidden deep within the vaults of the Dialectical Dungeon until today: the Sword of Destiny!

Wednesday 28 March 2012

First Post!!!

What, no?

Oddly, this isn't my first blog... thanks to Rami W, I know this is actually my second blog, the first one consisting of two posts in Hebrew on a platform which failed so hard and fast it wasn't cached properly on the web, much less in my memory.
Entrepreneurs are supposed to be learn from failure, so here I am again, this time on a stable platform and in the Lingua Franca of the day. BTW, if you think you know what Lingua Franca means, check out the link, you may be surprised.

A few other things are different... I've been sharpening my writing teeth on Facebook and occasionally getting frustrated by the lack of formatting and other limitations there. I also hope this time I'll have more things to write about... action oriented things, moving about, going around, coming back...
Perhaps this will be no different than other times, but hopefully at least better documented.

Why a Dialectical Dungeon?

Dialectic is a word that's been cropping up since I've discovered TRIZ and specifically with regards to some recent insights I've had which I'll blog about later.
If you think it's a big word, I must inform you that a blog post about ontological operations is in the pipe.

Why Dungeon? Because dialectics is not enough and because dungeons are cool... and it starts with a D.

What else can you expect?

TRIZ, lots and lots of TRIZ, in the vain hope that someday I won't have to give the same speech about TRIZ again and again IRL. What else, pictures of stuff, things from deep inside the dungeon perhaps... personal notes if I feel like it and last but not least updates and anecdotes relating to my various projects: White Dragon and it's various branches, the not-yet-dead-on-arrival app and of course, The Machine.

Also, if you're foolish enough to think you can trust this list of things to expect, I hope to teach a valuable lesson... Nobody Expects the Ninja Inquisition!