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Archive: April 14, 2004
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 I just downloaded Joe Satriani's latest album Is There Love in Space (from the iTunes music store, of course). Great stuff. I'm really enjoying listening to it while I'm working... Check it out if you like delicious guitar work.
I think "The Souls of Distortion" is destined to be one of my favorite guitar tracks of all time.
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Among the interesting articles in the Fortune 500 edition of Fortune Magazine was Future Shock, a prediction for the top ten companies of 2054 by futurist Peter Schwartz. Here's the list:
- AmazonBay. The first company to break $10T in revenue. That's T, not B.
- Toyota. "Flying cars are still not an option... Toyotas in 2054 resemble the cars of 2004—a passenger compartment, a separate engine compartment, and four wheels."
- Sinogazzon. "The first fully integrated natural gas company - combining production, shipping, and distribution - came into being in 2025. That year Gazzon, the result of an earlier merger of Exxon and Gazprom, the Russian gas producer, bought the Chinese distributor Sinogaz."
- Sinobiocorp. "The revolution in molecular biology and genetics triggered a huge wave of innovative industries early in the 21st century. The world market leader in life-science, Sinobiocorp, formed after a 2010 state-driven roll-up of Chinese biotech startups."
- Indosoft. "Computers woke up in 2043. But revolutionary change in the software business began years earlier as the U.S. giants began to be dominated by their Indian talent. So in 2020, when Microsoft and Oracle merged, it just seemed natural to change the name to Indosoft and move the headquarters to the new Gatestown complex in Mumbai."
- IBM. "Possibly the single most significant moment in business during the Fortune 500's second 50 years was the day in 2023 when IBM introduced the BohrBox, its first quantum hypercomputer for office use."
- Pattelco. "The Indian software giant, originally a software startup of the Patel clan, bought the remnants of AT&T in 2025 and incorporated the long-distance company's initials in its name when it launched the telepresence (TP) industry."
- Nestlé. "Once known for chocolates and baby formula, Nestlé dominates nutriceuticals, the new class of foods that bridges the gap between agriculture and drugs."
- Nanobotix. "A product of the first wave of consolidation in nanotechnology startups, Nanobotix, in Palo Alto, has been the pioneer in manufacturing on the atomic scale."
- News Corp. "After holding back the tide of digital distribution for nearly two decades, News Corp. switched direction in 2010 and led the trend of making all types of media available on demand - movies, newspapers, magazines, books, music."
A fascinating list. There's much more on each company, too, see the article for details.
I agree with (1), I'm not sure about (2), (3) and (4) seem reasonable, (5) seems right about the Microsoft part, maybe right about the Oracle part, but wrong about the moving to India part, (6) could be right, (7) is okay, (8) would be cool but is a bit farfetched, and (9) seems very possible. (10) seems dead wrong to me; this is where the parochialism of Fortune and parent TimeWarner creep in, they just don't want to admit that big media are headed for irrelevancy...
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This is going to be cool: The Tangled Bank. "A Carnival is a weekly showcase of good weblog writing, selected by the authors themselves. Each week, one of our crew will highlight a collection of interesting weblog articles in one convenient place, making it easy for everyone to find the good stuff. Our weekly compendium of great science weblog articles will be called the Tangled Bank, after Charles Darwin's famous metaphor." I'm going to try to put together a stable URL for a Tangled Bank RSS feed, stay tuned.
 AlwaysOn reports DNA folds into paired pyramids. "Researchers from the Scripps Research Institute have formed strings of DNA that spontaneously fold into a wireframe octahedron, a shape that has eight triangular faces. The octahedron has two advantages over other artificially-formed three-dimensional DNA shapes, according to the researchers. First, because the structures are triangular, they're relatively strong. Second, like a three-dimensional paper airplane made from a flat piece of paper, the octahedron is made from straight DNA strands. The three-dimensional shape forms when one long DNA strand and five shorter strands are mixed and heated." Amazing! This is an excerpt from an article in the February 12, 2004 issue of Nature.
Posts like this one are why I read Lore Sjöberg's Slumbering Lungfish. "This is like being assigned to buy a new bong and discuss similarities between The Matrix and Lord of the Rings." Yeah, like, cool, man.
Honesty requires I point out that I've already noted the seeming parallels, especially given the identity between Agent Smith and Elrond. "You seem to live two lives, Mr. Baggins." And no, I did not buy a new bong.
I don't often link Mickey Kaus on Slate, but I should. A masterful skewering: "I sniped at the NYT's Adam Nagourney last night, but this very day he achieves a significant breakthrough, pioneering a solution to a problem that has plagued American journalism for decades. The dilemma is this: What do you do when you have a strong opinion about your subject? You can't just say what you think--not within the strictures of 'objective' reporting, anyway." The solution? Interview another reporter who has the same view!
Here we have Sapphire, a liquid which doesn't get things wet. What will they think of next?
 came out of stealth mode today. This is Amazon's search engine startup. They are built on top of Google. John Battle gives it a quick review and thumbs up. "Something tells me the hearts are beating a bit faster at Yahoo and Google HQs today." Interesting. Apparently they have a very nice toolbar, I might have to check it out...
Scoble claims Jeremy Mazner clears up the WinFS confusion. Read his post and see if you agree. I'm not confused, but I am of the opinion that WinFS has been cut back, despite both evanglists' protests to the contrary...
Just when you think you've seen everything, you are reminded that "everything" is much more than you thought. ThinkGeek features this PC case which doubles as a home for small rodent pets. I am not making this up.
These would be perfect for a laboratory server farm :)
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