Is Bing Self Aware?

Strangely , looking for the word “Bing” in Microsoft’s new search engine,Bing,  gives one the useful hint “Keelbilled toucan in a rainforest in central Mexico”.

I would have thought that is the first thing their QA team would check.  I hear good things on Bing, so this may well be just an anecdote.

Searching Bing in Bing

Compare that with searching in Bing for “Google”- the result is “Develops Internet search technology.” That makes much more sense:).  Isn’t it Ironic when a search engine does not know what it is doing, but does now what the competition does ?

Search Google on Bing

Doing the opposite ( Searching for “Google” on Google and “Bing” in Google , is also interesting.

Did you know that “Google Enables users to search the Web, Usenet, and images”. “Usenet” ? really ? hos about it BBS ?

Search Google in Google

Search Bing on Google

Bar Refaeli, DNA Sequencing and Cloud Computing

Much like Bar Refaeli and Leonardo DiCaprio, DNA Sequencing and cloud computing go hand in hand together.

I had a  very  interesting conversation with a friend yesterday about DNA Sequencing and cloud computing.

My friend is leading one of the largest cancer genome research projects in the world (and  yes, he is extremely  bright).

It appears that there is a great progress in DNA sequencing technology, based on chemical process. The pace is much faster than Moore’s law. As a result the budgets are shifting from the chemistry side to the computational side.

In the past, the budget would be 90% for biology and 10% for analyzing the data coming our of the DNA.

As the sequencing costs have fallen by orders of magnitude there is more and more data ( a single patient genome data is one TeraByte).

The more data , the more computing power needed to analyze it and hence the budget split becomes 50-50.

Each computation can take up to 24 hours, running on 100 cores mini grid.

In theory, such tasks are great for cloud computing IAAS (Infra Structure as a Service) platforms or even PAAS (Platform as a service) solutions with Map-Redux capabilities.This EC2 Bioinformatics post provide interesting examples.

In practice there are three main challenges

1. Since Cancer research facilities need this server power everyday, it is cheaper for them to build the solutions internally.

1. To make things even more challenging, the highest cost in most clouds is the bandwidth in and out of the cloud. It would cost $150 to store one patient data on Amazon S3, but $170-$100 to transfer it into S3.

1. Even if the cost gap can  be mitigated, there can be regulatory problems with privacy of patients data.After all its one person entire DNA we speak about. Encryption would probably be too expensive, but spiting and randomizing the data can probably solve this hurdle.

So, where do clouds make most sense for this kind of biological research ?

One use case is the testing of new improved  algorithm. Then, the researchers want to run the algorithm on all the existing data, not just the new one.

They need to compare the results  of the new algorithm with the old algorithms on same data set.They also need to finish the paper on time for the submission deadline .

In such scenarios there is a huge burst of computation,needed on static data, at a very short period of time.Moreover,  if the data can be stored on shared cloud, and used by researchers form across the world, than data transport would not be so expensive in the overall calculation.

These ideas are fascinating and hopefully would drive new solutions, cures and treatments for cancer.

Fire Resistant Laptop?

While I don’t like Thinkpads as much as I did, they still have the great advantage of being very tough.

An anonymous PHD was actually typing for two hours next to the heater, and the laptop screen was protecting her from the direct heat. Than she told me “something smells funny”.  To my horror the screen back cover was melted and burnt plastic was flowing around. Amazingly, it still works perfectly, if you ignore some disfiguration. There most be a lesson here.  The following Pictures are Rated PG-13.

Innocent Heater

Heater and Laptop on Fire

R60 Damage After Heater

R60 Laptop After Heater Session

Easy Is Hard, Simple Is Harder

Taken from http://scienceblogs.com/chaoticutopia/

It is easy to mistake a programming task to be simple. This is especially true in user interface.

The executive is looking at the “trivial” two fields login screen and innocently estimates it to be a two hours job.

This is a common mistake, similar to some extent to The Three Body Problem in physics. Taking a simple, solvable problem and changing one parameter can result in an exceptionally complex problem. While the two-body problem is integrable and its solutions completely understood, solutions of the three-body problem may be of an arbitrary complexity and are very far from being completely understood. See a nice graphic example.

Login screens are not that complex, but take a look at the next example and see how many open questions\bugs can you come up with ?

Simple Login

1. Is it “Log-in” “Login” or “Log in”?
2. Is it clear that email is equivalent to user name?
3. Do you need a “Cancel” button?
4. Should there be a visible mark for the mandatory fields? Which mark?
5. Seems like a “Forgot My Password” link and screen are missing.
6. Is a Captcha needed to fight bots?


Simple Login Form

7. Is validation done on the client side or the server-side ?
8. How is the feedback given to the user? Where?
9. Security demands that we don’t tell the user what’s the exact problem (missing email or password). Usability does.
10. Where is the sign-up page? Where does Log-Out go out to?
11. “Email” , “eMail” or “email”?


Nice Login Form

12. Do we use SSL for the login but move to clear HTTP for the rest of the application ?
13. Cross browser testing?
14. How shall we do unit testing for the screen?
15. It turns out that validating an email address can be a nightmare.
16. After the user made a mistake, which events clear the warning notification?
17. Shall we support Hebrew? How about the German umlaut?
18. Shouldn’t “email” and “password” be left aligned?
19. Is the colon required after “Login”?
20. Do we want to limit the length for any of the fields? Minimum password strength?

Notice how we got to twenty non trivial questions without discussing the actual user authentication or the graphic design, which can be huge topics on their own.

My simplistic recommendation is to use of the shelf components whenever possible and go through the annoying step we used to call “feature design” even in this agile world we live in.

Sample Login Screen

Nokia will drop Symbian

Not a big  surprise for readers of my previous appliances vs software posts . Developing code for Symbian kernel was even worst than developing code for Apple kernel.

Symbian is an incongruous business concept . The company is supposed to make money selling an operating system, while the owners of Symbian ( Nokia ) really need people to get the operating System for free. Talk about catch 22. It was supposed to be independent and vendor free , while Nokia actually controlled it. It was supposed to attract developers, but you could not get your app on the phone easily.

Which MBA Genius ever came up with this plan? Don’t even get me going on horrible certification, licensing, white rooms, reference boards and 3500 Euros for developer for the pleasure of working in this non standard OS. The only good thing about it was C++.

Go Linux

 

Is Optimism a Fact of Life in Israel?

Here are a few quick facts to convince anyone that life is getting better.

Try this cool life expectancy tool from Google to see.

1. People are living longer. If you are born in Israel today you’ll live ten years longer than if you were born in 1960. 20 years if your are born in Haiti. 37 years in China !
2. Israel is one of the countries with longest life expectancy. 81 years. even better for women.
3. Life expectancy gaps between rich countries and poor countries are narrowing.
4. Hilary Swank won two Oscars for  “Million Dollar Baby” and “Boys Don’t Cry” after horrible failures in 90210 and “The next Karate Kid”
5. The number of traffic accidents in Israel has decreased by 35% in the last 12 years.

Life Expectancy is Getting Longer

Accidents Chart in Israel

The New Karate Kid - Swank

Forbidden Words for Developers

One of the worst plagues in society is hitting developers’ communities everywhere. It is not the swine flu. It is the CMAL syndrome. I think I might have caught it as well.

Cover My A**, Legally syndrome causes developers and managers  to start talking like lawyers or priests.

Allegedly, I will finish fixing the bug tomorrow.

I estimate the milestone will be completed in one hour.

The component is supposed to be ready in a week,unless something bad happens.

I hope this fix works, if not, let me know. (A real comment on a bug tracking system)

If all goes well, and no one gets sick, the plan should be realistic, allegedly.

The upgrade script is supposedly completed, on 8 out of 9 cases.

As a manager, I don’t need a constant reminder of human kind inability to control its destiny. My cat reminds me of that every morning.

A Cat Called Sushi

If there is a concrete problem  that needs handling, it  is worth a mention.Otherwise, let’s get the job done.

Moreover, if one estimates a task as one day long , in the morning, in most cases, it has to be finished by the end of the day.Estimating long projects is complex, but approximation of tasks that are less than eight hours long is part of profession.

The words create the mindset. Compare the passive  “will be completed” with the active  “I will complete”.

Does it mean that developers have to shut up and just please their managers ? Of course not. On the contrary. The relationship and language should be open and honest , not legally binding. As a manager I want to know if my decisions are stupid or not realistic. CMAL syndrome is not helping any of us.

If the manager is an idiot who is looking for a scapegoat, the legal disclaimer would not save your behind anyway.

If the manger is smart he does not need these legal and spiritual mumbo-jumbo. Hope and faith are better left to other important areas in life. I hope Dexter’s season four is as good as season two.

Hope and Faith, White Dove

Sex,Tennis and Statistics. Three is Enough.

I just read that some people think it is unfair that women tennis players finally get the same prizes as men. That helped Serena Williams set a new revenue record.

They claim that because women play three sets, they should get smaller prizes.

While I think the argument is quite stupid, I tried to look at it from a completely different angle.

Is there any reason that men play five sets ?

In other words, in how many cases was the match winner different than the “winner” after three sets ?

According to Wimbledon 2009 statistics , only in 6% (8 out of 127) of the cases the winner  of the match was able to reverse the score.

One could argue that these 6%  are the most interesting ones, but I’m not sure this is true.

To me , it seems that it might be better to have three sets for both men and women. It is hard to watch Tennis for so long anyway

And here are the numbers, just in case….

Day   Leader-Won Turn-Around

1     27      2

2     33      0

3    14        3

4     16       1

5     6         0

6     10      0

7     7        1

9      3        1

11    2        0

13    1        0

 

Americana

California Church

I’m writing this post on American Airlines flight 1823 from Seattle to Dallas.The cool part is that I have WiFI on the plane.

It was available about five years ago ,but the old service was not economical. This one works quite well.

It is always interesting to get back to the states. although it my birth place , I’m always surprised about the small differences.

• Californians can’t drive in the rain. I have brought on them the worst storm in 50 years.Eight inches in a day.
• The bigger surprise was that the Seattle drivers can’t drive in the rain either. Really. And they have rain all year-long.
• A sign in the second floor of an office building  - “the ADA approved restrooms are in the first floor“. That does not really help the blind, does it ?
• The hotel breakfast has orange juice, cranberry juice, apple juice, but no H2O in sight.Except for that eight inches of rain.
• There are Hebrew(s) and Jews everywhere. The San Mateo Korean laundry guy studied three years in Tel Aviv university. The barber next door is a Russian Jew named Sasha with relatives in Sderot. The Seattle newsstand actually has a Yiddish newspaper next to the fisherman bulletin. Don’t even get me started on our numbers in Hi-Tech.



Yiddish Newspaper in Seattle

• The socialist corner. Seems like nothing was learned from the banks’ crisis.  It is “good” for “everyone” that the bankers make millions in bonuses. If the CEO makes 180 Million , than the CIO makes five Million and he can buy IT for 20 Million. Then the vendor sales person wants to make 500K$. That’s all fine, but the base of the pyramid just went bankrupt. Maybe that’s why pyramids are built by slaves
• Capitalist corner. Why would I want to hire someone who starts on talking about his IPO rights ? There were almost no tech IPO for the last two years anyway.Shouldn’t we just focus on creating a great company first?
• Garmin GPS confuses Van Ness and Mission streets all the time.Just when getting out of the 101 highway. It is at a problem for at least a year now. Can anyone fix it ?
• Texas confuses the GPS even more.When the exit itself is one mile long and split into to highways,one should only trust the signs.
• I haven’t been to Texas for 19 years, since I taught wilderness survival in camp Constantin. Still, there is 3:1 ratio of Texas Flags to American flags.


Texas Flags Outnumber American Flags - Click for Details

• Green in Texas? It is GM Trucks month in Texas


Texas Green Truck ?

• I saw more uniformed American soldiers in Dallas airport in one day than in two months in San Francisco. Just saying.
• Green in Texas hotel room. Why would anyone need two queen size beds with seven  pillows in each bad?
• In Texas medium rare is medium rare.In California it is rare that  medium rare is medium rare.It is usually well done. Which is not well. Done.

Rare Squid in Seattle
To prevent DUI, Texas has a mechanism in cars to prevent the car to start when the drivers’ breath contains alcohol. Strange.
In California age discrimination at work is defined,by default, as firing anyone who is 40+. In Israel it is up to judge to decide on the merit of the case. Seems to make more sense. Discrimination can start at 39 and might not exist on 42.
Downloading films in the Airport is a cool idea. for three dollars you can download any film to the laptop. Only problem is the ActiveX crashes.

Download Movies in Airport

Why Won’t The Big Big Giant Eat You for Lunch ?

Oh, man! We killed Mr. Burns! Mr. Burns is gonna be so mad! – Homer Simpson

Giant Stepping On A Small Company

One of the most annoying questions I had to answer in last couple of years was “Why can’t Cisco\IBM\Microsoft\VMWARE\HP easily copy what you do?”

To some extent, it is another variation of the annoying “What’s your intellectual property?”

Both of the questions are studied in first year MBA courses  .They seem to make sense at a first glance, but I would try to show they are highly overrated questions.

The underlying assumption is that BBG (Big Big Giant) can use its amazing resources, huge capital , loyal customer base and brand to kill any small company if the small company does not have a great barrier to entry, which is typically a technological one.

Having worked in few BBG’s and couple of Start-Up I beg to differ. The giants tend to fail themselves.

StartUp Beats Big Big Giant Corporate

Lets start with some questions:

• Why was Sun unable to succeed with its own firewall (SunScreen?) when it tried to stop OEM’ing Check Point’s?
• Why was Check Point repeatedly unable  to take the SOHO firewall market  (FireWall-First, Small-Office, Safe@Home,Secure-1) ? NetScreen took if from CP. Then Fortinet did the same thing for NetScreen.
• Why does Microsoft still lack  significant footprint in the Firewall business?
• Why does Microsoft  ten billion dollars research budget fails to copy Google’s search algorithm for ten years?
• How come Google Video lost to YouTube?
• Why is VMWARE leading over Microsoft in virtualization?  Microsoft acquired Connectix in 2003. Connectix virtualization technology was almost as good as VMWARE’s at the time. Today there is a big gap in market share.
• How come IBM , with years of building super computers does not have an elastic cloud solution?
• How does small Riverbed perform  so well among the networking giants?
• What was the huge intellectual property in Windows that OS2 lacked?

Here is a hint to my proposed answer to why giants fail, details to follow on part II :

1. Time.
2. Focus.
3. Execution.
4. Constraints.
5. Culture.
6. Investors.
7. Golden Cage Syndrome.