Greek Complexity

Not better search; better-than-search

Earlier this year, Nova Spivack called for a better "decision-support engine" (my phrase; he prefers "help engine", which is definitely catchier). He doesn't say much about what form such an engine could take, either as perceived by the user or its entrails. However, you do get an inkling of what he's thinking about.

Quote:

Search engines cause choice overload. That wasn’t the goal, but it is what has happened over time due to the growth of the Web and the explosion of choices that are visible, available, and accessible to us via the Web.

What we need now is not a search engine — it’s something that solves the problem created by search engines. For this reason, the next Google probably won’t be Google or a search engine at all.

Spivack is a (the?) grandson of Peter Drucker, not that that's relevant to this article. I consider him one of the best technology futurists around in a world of pretenders.

Link: Eliminating the Need for Search – Help Engines

Never mind, I got it

Ok, I figured out the answer to the conundrum I just posted. If you think you know the answer and want to compare notes, leave a comment. Better yet, email me directly so that you don't spoil the fun for others!

A conundrum

What is wrong with this reasoning?

Proof That Five Equals Four

-20 = -20
25 – 45 = 16 – 36
5² – 45 = 4² – 36
5² – 45 + 81/4 = 4² – 36 + 81/4
(5 – 9/2)² = (4 – 9/2)²
5 – 9/2 = 4 – 9/2
5 = 4

From Futility Closet. He also links to three other purported "proofs", all of which are interesting but whose logic is easy to refute. This one stumps me though. Let me sleep on it.

QOTD 27 Sep 2010

Saying what we think gives us a wider conversational range than saying what we know.

QOTD 20 Sep 2010

The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office.

QOTD 16 Sep 2010

Quote of the day: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

Singapore: start-up city?

Entrepreneur Hugo Angelmar shares his views on Singapore as a destination for new start-ups. Some particularly astute views given the relatively short amount of time he has spent here. No platitudes, sycophancy or motherhood statements here. I found this paragraph particularly good:

Singapore has made the news in the US and Europe as providing a large amount of startup capital to young upstarts. This has made available a flurry of grants of $50,000SGD to a number of fresh graduates (or still in school) students with no experience to build and launch a product to market. Empirically, Singapore hasn’t had any global tech startups (ignoring the surprising story of Creative). Social Wok and Home Camera might be considered exceptions (and where started by experienced individuals) given the overwhelming amount of individuals I’ve seen with their “Founders” or “Directors” business cards of companies. This easy access to funding has diluted the labor market for entrepreneurial people among small projects of 1-2 people.

And found this particularly telling:

A friend who did some recruitment while at Motorola a few years ago complained that 80% of the candidates they interviewed couldn’t code a program in C to determine if a number was odd or even.

Entrepreneurs, investors and government need to take note.

Though agreeing with almost everything he says, I do think there have been a few more Singapore-based successes than he realises (though definitely no world-beaters) and there are a few potential future successes waiting in the wings.

Link: Structural Market Deficiency or “How Do I Scale Our Team”

Book review: The Handmaid's Tale

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (Rating: ***)

Interesting premise but the narrative is plodding and never really takes off. I had to struggle to finish it and only persevered because I was curious to see how it would end. This being my first Atwood, I didn't know whether she favoured happy endings or sad ones. In the event, she favours... actually, I won't tell you.

Techcrunch on the Asian web

Just read an interesting Techcrunch post from a couple of months ago. I liked the following section best but the whole (looooong) post is worth a read for anyone interested in the state of affairs in the Asian (not just SE Asian) Internet and mobile worlds.

I liked this section best:

Current Challenges In South East Asia’s Tech Scene

It’s still very early in the game, it’s already a huge market, and there’s room for massive future growth in South East Asia’s web and mobile industry. But there are still some significant hurdles to overcome, especially if you regard South East Asia as one region.

Some hurdles I personally see in South East Asia’s web and mobile market (and on the way to a possible integration) are the:

• still relatively undeveloped tech ecosystem and its “chicken and egg” problem
  (depending on the country: big number of copycats, relatively low number of startups, few to almost no VCs firms/angel investors, low salaries for engineers, low propensity of skilled employees to work for startups, fewer people with an entrepreneurial mindset etc.)
• historically, culturally, and economically diverse markets
• much lower online spend than in North America or Europe
• weak exit environment (IPOs, trade sales)
• political and legal problems in some South East Asian countries
  (IP protection, bureaucracy for startups, general political instability)
• massive “brain drain”
• still low Internet penetration (examples: Indonesia has 12.5% Internet penetration, Vietnam has 25.7%, the Philippines just 24.5%)
• fragmented mobile landscape
• underdeveloped online and mobile payment infrastructure (if any)

Many of these problems, for example the low Internet penetration, will probably solve themselves in the future. And in fact, local startups, partly financed by local venture capital firms (which do exist), are starting to crop up all over the place.

Much better expressed and way better informed than someone else's speech that I blogged ranted about back in June.

Link: From OpenWebAsia In Kuala Lumpur: South East Asia’s Web Under The Spotlight

QOTD 13 Sep 2010

Quote of the day: I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my body. Then I realized who was telling me this.