*michael parekh on IT*

ON SOME BRAIN BUSTING TED TALKS (Part II)

MOVING IMAGES

A couple of weeks ago, I posted about one of the best presentations I'd seen at the 2008 TED Conference (Technology, Entertainment and Design).  Here's how I described it:

"One of the most powerful presentations of the afternoon for me was the one by Jill Bolte Taylor, a brain scientist who gave an incredible, personal account over an 18 minute presentation of her own stroke almost a decade ago, and the long path to fully recovery. "

It was one of the most emotionally moving presentations of the five-day conference.  Now, the full video of the 18 minute presentation is available on the TED site.  Here's the video:

The TED team has also put up some other notable videos up on their web-site.  I'd also recommend Craig Venter's presentation on the current progress on creating synthetic life...it's both scary and exciting. 

Exciting because it promises extraordinary advancements like fourth generation fuels...scary, because these technologies could also potentially have unexpected negative consequences, especially in the wrong hands.  "Brave new world" barely begins to describes it.

ON A PICTURE-PERFECT UNIVERSE

COME TOGETHER

A pretty full first day at TED 2008 yesterday, as can be seen from TED's Bruno Giussani's post here (Ethan Zuckerman and Boing Boing also have great posts on the day's proceedings).  There were emotional extremes with speakers discussing the various forms of Evil in this world, and our definition of Beauty.

The one that stayed with me the most was this presentation by surfer physicist Garrett Lisi.  Here's how Boing Boing's Mark Frauenfelder describes it (image from Lunch Over IP):

" Garrett Lisi is introduced as a surfing physicist working on a grand unified theory - E8. He wants to find all the particles and forces that make a complete picture of our universe. He starts by making fun of himself, coming onto the stage and saying "Woah dude, check out those killer equations!"

But he wants to talk about particle physics without using equations. He starts showing images of corals. Coral polyps branch into copies. So do universes.

He shows a funny slide of the Shroedinger's Cat problem (for comic effect, he puts Erwin in the box, and the cat gets to run the experiment). We see Shroedinger branching like a coral polyp in the unopened box. Quantum physics says "Everything that can happen does."

The four different known forces have different kinds of charges. The hypothetical Higgs particle gives mass to things, and the  Large Hadron Collider that's about to go into operation will hopefully prove the existence of Higgs particles.

Electric charges are combinations of two different charges, hyper charges and weak charge.

Strong interactions between quarks are happening millions of times a second, holding atomic nuclei together. These particles are at the very limit of our knowledge. The known pattern of charges could come from a more perfect pattern that gets broken. to do these we need to introduce new charges with new directions.

He shows a colorful animated pattern of elementary particle interactions. The interactions are taking place in the 8th dimension. Some of the places where there should be particles are blank. They need to be filled in with currently unknown particles.

What's one reason E8 is so appealing to him? "At the heart of this mathematics is pure, beautiful geometry."

There were a number of presentations at TED by rocket scientists laying out the latest bits of how we understand the universe.  Garret lisi was the first one to suggest, and show with beautiful animations, how the equations that describe these theories, may come together into something that is utterly beautiful and symmetrical (I'll update this post with links of the presentation and animations  from TED when available). 

A lot of this is still unknown, and a lot more needs to be researched and understood.  But it was good to be able to think that the universe could be a deeply pretty picture.

ON A BRAIN BUSTING KICKOFF TO TED 2008

MIND TRAVELS

TED 2008 kicked off it's five-day conference strong in Monterey, CA and Aspen, CO yesterday, with presentations by folks like Stephen Hawking and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (the spiritual leader, not Ravi Shankar, the musician. and father of Norah Jones).

You can get a good sense of the proceedings from the TED blog here, the Twitter feeds by many attendees here, and this terrific rundown by Bruno Giussani here.

One of the most powerful presentations of the afternoon for me was the one by Jill Bolte Taylor, a brain scientist who gave an incredible, personal account over an 18 minute presentation of her own stroke almost a decade ago, and the long path to fully recovery. 

Like so many others, I have a loved one (my mom), who experienced a stroke a few years ago, and have struggled trying to understand what something like that really involves since then.

Bruno describes Jill's presentation well with this passage, along with a picture of the real human brain she used to explain what was going on where:

"Jill Bolte Taylor is incredible: she's a neuroanatomist (brain scientist) who has suffered a stroke and studied it "from inside", as it happened, while her brain functions shut down one by one: motion, speech, memory, self-awareness.
It took her eight years to recover, and to become a spokesperson for the possibility to come back.

"I studied the brain because I have a brother who's been diagnosed with a brain disorder, schizophrenia. What are the biological differences between the brains of individuals diagnosed as "normal" and those diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder?
On the morning of December 10 1996, I got my own mental illness: in the course of four hours I watched by brain completely deteriorate in its ability to process information. I could not walk, talk, think.

If you've ever seen a human brain (she shown a real human brain -- picture above): it has two hemispheres.

The right hemisphere functions like a parallel processor, while the left hemisphere functions like a serial processor. So they process information differently, they think about different things, they care about different things, and I would say that they have very different personalities. Our right  hemisphere is all about this very moment, right here right now. It thinks in pictures, Information in the form of energy sterams in simultaneously through all of our sensory system and then  it explodes into what this present moment feels like. I'm an energy being connected to the energy alla around me through the consciousness of my right hemisphere. And through that we are all connected. And in this moment we are perfect, whole, and beautiful.

Our left hemisphere is a very different place. It thinks linearly and methodically. It's all about the past and about the future. It's designed to take that collage of the present moment, and pick out details after details, categorize them, associate them with all of what we have learned in the past, and project into our future possibilities. It thinks in languages. It's the internal chatter that connects us to the external world. It's the calculating intelligence that reminds me when I have to do my laundry. And most important it's the voice that tells me "I am". And as soon it says that, I become separate from you. That's the portion of my brain that I lost on the morning of my stroke.

On that morning I woke up to a pounding pain on the back of my eye. It just gripped me, then released me, then gripped me, then released me. I got up trying to perform my usual routine, jumping on my exercise machine, and I realize that my hands look like claws. It's like as if my consciousness had shifted away.

I got off the machine and walked and realized that my body had slowed down, every step was very rigid. I stood in my bathroom ready to go into the shower and looked down at my arm and realized I could no longer define the boundaries of my body, of where I begin and where I end, the molecules of my arm were like blended with those of the wall, am all I could detect was energy flowing.

Then the chatter in my brain went silent. For a moment I was shocked to be in the total silent. Then in an instant my left hemisphere came back online, and I realized that I needed help; then I drifted out again, into "la-la-land"; then in again. I was walking around my apartment, telling to myself: I have to get to work. Then I realize: I'm having a stroke. And my left hemisphere tells me: wow, this is so cool, how many brain scientists have the chance to study that from the inside?

But I need to get help. I get to my office, I pick up a card, I can't figure out what's on it, my brain is back in la-la-land. Then I have a wave of clarity. Drifting in and out. (She goes on describing the difficulties of dialing a phone number and communicating to get help, unable to read the number, "because the pixels of the words blended with the pixels of the background"), and then I would wait for a wave of clarity. It took me  45 minutes to find the right number.

I'm in an ambulance towards the hospital and I realize that I'm no longer the choreographer of my life. Maybe the doctors will give me a second chance, maybe not. And right there, I just feel my spirit surrender -- I say goodbye to my life.
When I awoke, I was shocked to discover that I was still alive. My life was now suspended between two strains of reality: information streaming in but I could not pick voices out from the background noise. Sounds were so loud and chaotic. I just wanted to escape because I could not identify the position of my body in space. I felt enormous and expansive, and my spirit soaring.

I found nirvana. I remember thinking: there is no way that I can squeeze the enormousness of myself back inside my tiny body. But then I realized: I am still alive. And if I found nirvana, then anyone who's alive can find nirvana. And I pictured a world full with beautiful, peaceful, compassionate people who knew that they can come to this space at any time. What a gift a stroke can be to the way we live our lives. That motivated me to try to recover.

Two and a half weeks after the hemorrhage, the surgeons went in and removed a blood clot the size of a tennis ball. It took me eight years to completely recover. So who are we?

We are the life horsepower of the universe, and we have the power to choose moment by moment who we want to be in the world, we can choose the consciousnesses of our right hemisphere or that of our left hemisphere.

These are the "we" inside of me. Which would you choose? Which do you choose? And when? I believe the more time we spend choosing the peace of our right hemisphere, the most peace we will project into the world and more peaceful our planet will be."

I've excerpted the full presentation from Bruno's post to try and convey the emotional impact of a presentation like this.

It was a riveting presentation, and I'll put up a video link from TED when available.  It really is a big step towards not taking one's brain for granted.

By the way, I'll be twittering (aka Twitter blogging) a fair bit from TED most of this week, joining in the conversation by many other TED attendees who're also twittering the conference.  This list by Austin Hill is a good place to keep track of these tweets.  My twittering of the conference can be accessed at my Twitter link here.

More to come.

ON A LOST ISLAMIC ARCHIVE

SEEING THE LIGHT

This page one article in the weekend Wall Street Journal titled "The Lost Archive", had me riveted this morning.  Here's the sub-title:  "Missing for half a century, a cache of photos spurs sensitive research on Islam's holy text", which of course is the Koran.

The story has a beginning that sounds like something out of an Indiana Jones movie:

"On the night of April 24, 1944, British air force bombers hammered a former Jesuit college here housing the Bavarian Academy of Science. The 16th-century building crumpled in the inferno. Among the treasures lost, later lamented Anton Spitaler, an Arabic scholar at the academy, was a unique photo archive of ancient manuscripts of the Quran.

The 450 rolls of film had been assembled before the war for a bold venture: a study of the evolution of the Quran, the text Muslims view as the verbatim transcript of God's word. The wartime destruction made the project "outright impossible," Mr. Spitaler wrote in the 1970s.

Mr. Spitaler was lying. The cache of photos survived, and he was sitting on it all along. The truth is only now dribbling out to scholars -- and a Quran research project buried for more than 60 years has risen from the grave."

Scholars are just now getting their heads around the implications for secular research of these documents, something that could take decades and be fraught with all sorts of personal, social and political risks.

Here's an example of something that could be unsettling to the current interpretation of what happens to Islamic martyrs:

"A scholar in northern Germany writes under the pseudonym of Christoph Luxenberg because, he says, his controversial views on the Quran risk provoking Muslims.

He claims that chunks of it were written not in Arabic but in another ancient language, Syriac. The "virgins" promised by the Quran to Islamic martyrs, he asserts, are in fact only "grapes.""

That could get "Christoph Luxenberg" the Salman Rushdie treatment in a hurry.

The challenge here of course is that Islam is just now getting the secular analysis that other religions like Christianity and Judaism have undergone over the past few hundred years.  And it's something that's obviously a powder keg of major proportions.

A thought occurred to me as I was reading the article. 

What if the entire archive were released on the Internet, say on Wikipedia or Google Scholar? 

What if it was then available to any and all scholars, researchers and interested parties to study, discuss and debate the findings?

What if the participants could choose whether to reveal their true identities or publish/discuss under pseudonyms, like many do on the internet today?

Would it diffuse the  risks of a project like this, or would it exacerbate them?

This is something that obviously wouldn't have been possible a few years ago.  But it could be an alternative approach on dealing with this re-discovered treasure.

Something to think about.

ON LESSONS FROM LITERAL OBSERVANCE

WALK IN THEIR SHOES

This book title caught my eye, while browsing through the Amazon Kindle bookstore:

"The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible (Kindle Edition)
by A. J. Jacobs"

Here's what the Publisher's Weekly had to say about the title:

"What would it require for a person to live all the commandments of the Bible for an entire year? That is the question that animates this hilarious, quixotic, thought-provoking memoir from Jacobs (The Know-It-All).
He didn't just keep the Bible's better-known moral laws (being honest, tithing to charity and trying to curb his lust), but also the obscure and unfathomable ones: not mixing wool with linen in his clothing; calling the days of the week by their ordinal numbers to avoid voicing the names of pagan gods; trying his hand at a 10-string harp; growing a ZZ Top beard; eating crickets; and paying the babysitter in cash at the end of each work day.
(He considered some rules, such as killing magicians, too legally questionable to uphold.) In his attempts at living the Bible to the letter, Jacobs hits the road in highly entertaining fashion to meet other literalists, including Samaritans in Israel, snake handlers in Appalachia, Amish in Lancaster County, Pa., and biblical creationists in Kentucky.
Throughout his journey, Jacobs comes across as a generous and thoughtful (and, yes, slightly neurotic) participant observer, lacing his story with absurdly funny cultural commentary as well as nuanced insights into the impossible task of biblical literalism. (Oct.)"

The book has over a 160 reader reviews and 4 1/2 star rating on Amazon.

Several thoughts occurred to me as I read this:

1.  Would this make a good reality show on TV?  Would it be popular in a mainstream context?
2.  What if we did a book and/or TV reality show on someone doing the same thing with the world's other major religions:  Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and others.
3.  Would that exercise give us a better understanding of the role religion plays in our lives the world over?  What would it teach both grown-ups and kids?

Having read and enjoyed the author's earlier work "The Know-it-all", I knew this would be an interesting read.  So I did order the title for my Kindle, and look forward to thinking more about these questions.

ON THINKING DIFFERENT WITH ONLINE PRESENTATIONS

STEALING THE SHOW

As expected, Google announced Presently, a new, online presentation application, as an addition to Google Docs, an online application suite that includes word processing and spreadsheets.  Techmeme has a series of posts about the announcement.

Ironically, the presentation that most caught my attention, was the YouTube video Google used to EXPLAIN the essence of Presently and the other Google Docs applications.

It's a pretty innovative presentation done with lots of cut paper illustrations, hand gestures, and scribblings on a white-board, all captured in stop-action photography-style video, with a witty voice-over narrative.

Talk about a non-Powerpoint way to do a presentation.

The most interesting thing about the under three-minute presentation was the entity that produced it for Google, a consulting outfit called Commoncraft.

Turns out Commoncraft has done other videos, called "Commoncraft shows", for other clients, each explaining various online services, using a similar style.

Here's one they did explaining "social book-marking" for Del.icio.us.

And a couple explaining what "Wikis" and "RSS feeds" are all about.

After watching all of them, I found myself wanting an online presentations tool that would allow me to do screen-casts like this instead of boring Powerpoint-like presentations.

When I think about it, the best presentations I've made are in small groups when I've been able to scribble thoughts and sketches on a big piece of paper, all the while talking up a storm.

The Commoncraft presentations are an extension of that idea, sharable as a screen-cast with the world online.

What online applications like Presently need to do is evolve the computer presentation application like Powerpoint into a system that allows truly interactive presentations that can be created with minimal technical effort, but easily sharable online.  Now that'd stealing the show.

ON THE OCEANS VIA THE INTERNET

LIVE-SCIENCES

This New York Times article titled "Bringing the Oceans to the World-High Tech", takes a few seconds to sink in with it's importance:

"Thousands of miles of fiber-optic cables are strung across the world’s oceans, connecting continents like so many tin cans in this age of critical global communication. So the fact that about 800 more miles of fiber-optic cable will soon thread the sea floor off the coast of the Pacific Northwest might not seem particularly revolutionary. Until you meet John R. Delaney, part oceanographer, part oracle.

“This is a mission to Planet Ocean,” said Mr. Delaney, a professor at the University of Washington. “This is a NASA-scale mission to basically enter the Inner Space, and to be there perpetually. What we’re doing is bringing the ocean to the world.”

Under a $331 million program long dreamed of by oceanographers and being financed by the National Science Foundation, Professor Delaney and a team of scientists from several other institutions are leading the new Ocean Observatories Initiative, a multifaceted effort to study the ocean — in the ocean — through a combination of Internet-linked cables, buoys atop submerged data collection devices, robots and high-definition cameras. The first equipment is expected to be in place by 2009.

A central goal, say those involved, is to better understand how oceans affect life on land, including their role in storing carbon and in climate change; the causes of tsunamis; the future of fish populations; and the effect of ocean temperature on growing seasons.

Oceanographers also hope to engage other scientists and the public more deeply with ocean issues by making them more immediate. Instead of spending weeks or months on a boat gathering data, then returning to labs to make sense of it, oceanographers say they expect to be able to order up specific requests from their desktops and download the results."

But then it hits you like a ton of bricks...making you think, "Why hasn't this been done already?" 

It's almost trite to say that studying the deep oceans is as important as studying the heavens in terms of learning new, basic things about our environment that we still don't know.  Not as glamorous in a "Right Stuff" kind of way, but potentially far more rewarding to humanity in the form of tangible rewards in the short-term (in the next few decades).

This program seems like a tiny foot-step in the right direction.  And we can watch it happen real-time on the Net.  Hope Google is already on this and thinking "Google Ocean".

ON A MEMORABLE MOMENT IN WASHINGTON

FROM THE HEART

Thinking about kids and the end of summer holidays (yesterday's post), brought to mind one of the most touching presentations given on behalf of kids. 

I'm speaking of the late Reverend Fred Rogers, better known as Mr. Rogers for decades, giving a passionate plea for $20 million in federal funding for children's television funding, in front of a Senate sub-committee back in 1969. 

This YouTube video of the presentation, although six and a half minutes long, has a payoff at the end that rivals anything you've seen in the movies. 

The chairman of the sub-committee was Senator John O. Pastore, who had a reputation for being gruff and impatient.  Again, the ending of the presentation needs to be seen to be believed,

Jimmy Stewart couldn't have done it better if he'd gone to Washington himself.

On a totally separate note, it's important to note the role Mr. Rogers played in how an earlier generation of time-shifting technology, the humble VCR, came to be relatively unregulated.  As this Wikipedia entry notes:

"During the controversy surrounding the introduction of the household VCR, Rogers was involved in supporting the manufacturers of VCRs in court.

His 1979 testimony in the case Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. noted that he did not object to home recording of his television programs, for instance, by families in order to watch together at a later time.

This testimony contrasted with the views of others in the television industry who objected to home recording or believed that devices to facilitate it should be taxed or regulated.

The Supreme Court considered the testimony of Rogers in its decision that held that the Betamaxinfringe copyright. The Court stated that his views were a notable piece of evidence "that many [television] producers are willing to allow private time-shifting to continue;"

Sounds kinda familiar, doesn't it?  Boy, could we use Mr. Rogers again.

ON SUMMER'S END

SHORT AND SWEET

This clip from YouTube reminded me of my five-year old nephew Neal, who simply can't wait to get back to school next week.  Why? Because he "misses his friends".  It's only sixteen seconds long:

Mastercard simply hits the nail on the head with this one, music ("We want the funk") and all...priceless.

ON FAKE STEVE JOB 2.0

HE'S BACK...

It's been almost three weeks since the dastardly unveiling of Fake Steve Jobs (aka FSJ), and contrary to my concerns back then, the unmasked FSJ is pulling no punches...just like the masked FSJ.  Here's how he kicks off his post on the Gateway-Acer deal, as an example:

"So when I said recently that we need a good merger I really didn't mean something as boring and unimportant as this Acer-Gateway deal.

See here. Honestly, this is one of those deals where it's like going to a wedding where the two ugliest losers you know are getting hitched. You're happy for them, I guess.

You're glad they found each other. But you sure as f*** hope they don't have kids."

And it gets much better than that (by the way, the dilution of the f-word above is mine).  Here's a more serious, balanced look on what the merger means from PCMagazine.

Coming back to FSJ, you know he's really back though, when he comes to the aid of young damsels in obvious distress, as in this hilarious post on the Miss Teen USA 2007 candidate from South Carolina, answering a simple question (via YouTube).

This clip already has over 4 million views on YouTube alone.  Thanks FSJ, for coming to her defense.  An obvious case of stage fright in front of millions of TV viewers, compounded by not having a thing to say on the question at hand.  Again, in the interest of fairness, see this response from her on the flubbed performance.

Welcome back FSJ, truly.  Peace out and Namaste.

ON iPHONE, GOOGLE MAPS, AND BEYOND

WHERE IN THE WORLD?

I'm an unabashed map geek.  Have been since childhood.  I can't get enough of maps, globes, and all the stuff that people have used them for throughout history.  It's been mostly for conquest and control, but that's a whole another story.

So of all the dazzling features of the iPhone being described by a gaggle of professional reviewers* over the past 24 hours (see Techmeme for links), this quote from David Pogue of the New York Times jumped out for me:

"The Google Maps module lets you view street maps or aerial photos for any address. It can provide driving directions, too. It’s not real G.P.S. — the iPhone doesn’t actually know where you are — so you tap the screen when you’re ready for the next driving instruction.

But how’s this for a consolation prize? Free live traffic reporting, indicated by color-coded roads on the map."

You really have to see Maps in action on the iPhone to get a real sense. 

We've all seen it a bit, in all those ubiquitous iPhone TV ads the last few weeks (especially the Calamari one).  Google maps on the iPhone, is even the first picture in the photos Apple uses to market the iPhone on it's site (see adjacent photo).

But David Pogue shows it particularly well in his VIDEO review of the iPhone here, calling it his "favorite iPhone feature":

(As an aside, why don't more mainstream gadget reviewers use video more for their reviews?)

But coming back to the iPhone, Google, and maps, Wired magazine has a terrific article on how Google came being somebody in the online map business.

It explains how the company came to be really proactive about making online maps more mainstream and malleable by ordinary folks. 

(Here's the link to the single page version of the Wired piece). 

In particular, it highlights how much the company itself is a "map geek" from the top down.  The pivotal moment this became clear for me personally, was when Google in 2004 bought a relatively unknown mapping company called Keyhole, that was primarily providing online maps to the government.  The Wired article describes how this came to be:

"In 2004, not long after Sergey Brin downloaded a copy of  (Keyhole) Earth Viewer and interrupted a Google meeting to "fly" to the house of each executive in the room, the company bought Keyhole for an undisclosed amount, renamed it Google Earth, and moved (Keyhole founder) Hanke's team into Building 45."

The rest, as they say, is history:

"Since Google relaunched the software in June 2005, the stand-alone Google Earth program has been downloaded more than 250 million times. The program's seamless zoom-in feature has become ubiquitous on television news shows.

And there are dedicated sites — such as Google Sightseeing and Virtual Globetrotting — built for scouring and saving odd and interesting finds from not only Google Earth but also competing 3-D globes like NASA's World Wind and Microsoft's Live Search Maps."

Until Google bought Keyhole, I like many map geeks, was paying hundreds of dollars for Keyhole's software to play with their online maps.  After the acquisition, Google made much of the Keyhole product line free, available to anyone online.  The more advanced version of the product is still available as a premium product, but the free one does most of what most people would want.

It's become a template on how premium software products are rapidly turning into "freemium" online services at Google and elsewhere.  Google followed the same template with it's acquisition of photo software company Picasa, also in 2004**.

But here's the bit in the whole Wired article that's really most important going forward, if you're interested in how mainstream maps will really get online.  It's what Google plans to do with files created in what's called the Keyhole Markup Language (KML):

In the midst of all this cacophony, Google is discovering that a smart, effective search engine is once again the key. Google Earth and Google Maps have long had search boxes, but you couldn't find much. Typing in "pizza New York," for example, brought up links to sites that Google itself had generated, usually by buying up Yellow Pages listings or crawling the Web for pizza mentions that had New York addresses.

But with the launch of My Maps, Google is anchoring its new search strategy to KML. The company is indexing all KML files on the Web — it has cataloged several million so far — and is working with the Open Geospatial Consortium to make KML the standard.

"Right now, Google Maps is mostly about searching for businesses," says Jessica Lee, a Google product manager. "But what we don't have is the sort of niche, long-tail content. We don't know where all the endangered species or the pandas in China live, or where the best places to go bird-watching are. By providing the tools, we can let other people create it."

The bolding is mine.  This will make maps mash ups really fly.

Google is not the only company focused on the mammoth mainstream opportunities around online maps.  Microsoft, Yahoo! and AOL are also very much in the game, as are a number of other large and small companies.

It's very easy to see how devices like the iPhone, in it's later generations, will really make all this online map stuff really accessible wherever we are.  This week's iPhone gives a wee glimpse into how cool this stuff will really be to use.

I for one, can't wait.

P.S. Going back to maps and globes, I have an unrelated request of any reader that may information on this.  I'm looking for 3-d relief globes of the world that depict the topography of the planet WITHOUT the oceans. 

Some of you may have seen the giant, metal globe of the planet in the American Museum of Natural History in New York. 

My current map quest (pun intended), is to have both physical and online versions of these 3-D relief maps, preferably in a globe format, so one can really see the world without the oceans.  Maps that show this detail with national boundary lines would be a plus.

This really should be a Google Maps feature.  I'll even settle for a Microsoft Maps version of this feature. 

A geeky request for sure, but there may be some of you out there that grok where I'm coming from.  Thanks.

* My favorite iPhone review of the reviews comes from Fake Steve Jobs himself.  Take time especially to read the comments to the post.  Some of them are hilarious as well.  Namaste.

**  Speaking of Picasa, Google, maps, and mobile devices, Google today announced relevant features, "Map my Photos", and "Picasa Web Album for mobile phones".  Ain't technology grand?

 

ON GOOD FRIENDS AND CANCER

NEW PERSPECTIVES

(Updated)

Over the course of this year so far, I've gotten news of several good friends being diagnosed with various types of Cancer and other near-fatal diseases.  Just got one such piece of heart-breaking news yesterday about an old, young friend. 

Needless to say, it's added a jarring layer of real-world perspective on the fragility of life and the things we sometimes take for granted.

On the surface, the number of incidents seemed pretty high. 

And then I read this interview in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, with the CEO of Genentech, Arthur D. Levinson. 

Having followed Genentech peripherally for decades, I hadn't realized the company's recent focus on cancer.  As the CEO observes:

"We decided 15 years ago that we would be committing to oncology, which at the time for us was new. We are now the leading producer of anticancer drugs in the United States."

This quote in particular by the Genentech CEO hit home for me, on the total scope of Cancer and what's being spent on finding cures:

"There's another way to look at it -- look at how much society is investing in cancer. In the absence of better care, 42% of everybody out there is going to get cancer. And half of those 42% are going to die of cancer.

It's the leading cause of death among Americans under age 85.

So how much are we spending on drugs for cancer? We have a $12 trillion GDP [gross domestic product].

And we're spending $15 billion. If I do that math, 1/800th of GDP for the leading cause of death. And people say cancer drugs are bankrupting America! Give me a break."

42%!  That's a number that hadn't quite registered for me. 

And those seem to be the numbers for one of the primary diseases we face.  One can only imagine the research state of affairs for rarer, "orphaned" diseases.

The thrust of the article though is an attempt by the CEO to explain (rationalize?) the high cost of cancer treatment ($50,000 plus per year per patient), given the high risk, drawn out process to find potential cures and get them through the long approval processes. 

He even goes so far as to say that Genentech's margins are not egregious when compared to Microsoft.

It's an uphill climb on that front, and  I know the issues are highly complex on all sides. 

At the same time, even a Republican like me has to wonder how many more people who have the disease could be saved if the prices were far more affordable by mainstream folks.  How different might the mortality statistics be?

Given the number of friends who are now battling various cancers, this issue now has a lot more of my attention.  I intend to be more smarter on this front.

Better late than never.

ON THE FATE OF BOOMERS AND IMMIGRANTS

TIED AT THE HIP

Fascinating article in the Wall Street Journal, titled "Boomers' Good Life Tied to Better Life for Immigrants".  It makes a point not very well understood by mainstream Americans on how the quality of life for them and/or their senior loved ones is intricately tied to the fate of immigrants going forward.  Here's the introduction:

"The quality of life for some 80 million graying baby boomers in the U.S. may depend in large part on the fortunes of another high-profile demographic group: millions of mostly Hispanic immigrants and their children.

With a major part of the nation's population entering its retirement years and birth rates falling domestically, the shortfall in the work force will be filled by immigrants and their offspring, experts say. How that group fares economically in the years ahead could have a big impact on everything from the kind of medical services baby boomers receive to the prices they can get for their homes.

Immigrants and baby boomers are two groups whose destinies are converging in the next 20 years," says Dowell Myers, a demographer at the University of Southern California. "Baby boomers will surrender their economic role to this generation of immigrants and their children," who will evolve into a critical pool of laborers and taxpayers, he says."

The numbers are eye-opening to say the least:

"The U.S. is undergoing a seismic demographic change that will kick in over the next decade or so. In California, for example, there were 9.7 million baby boomers between the ages of 40 and 49 in 2005, who accounted for 51% of the prime working-age population. By 2020, they will be 55 to 74 years old, with most boomers on the brink of retirement or about to plunge into it.

The weight of this aging population will swell relative to the pool of working-age people. The ratio of senior citizens to prime-working-age people, 25 to 64 years old, will jump 30% in the decade between 2010 and 2020 and an additional 29% in the following decade, according to Prof. Myers.

All told, the ratio of seniors to working-age residents, including immigrants, will grow from 250 seniors per 1,000 working-age people in 2010 to 411 per 1,000 in 2030, he calculates."

It's interesting that this theme is nowhere to be found in the currently polarized debate on immigration, going into a major election year.  Almost every candidate on either side is treating the immigration issue as primarily tied to national security.

As the WSJ articles puts it:

"But given the nation's polarizing debate over illegal immigration, the U.S. is unlikely to implement policies to attract many newcomers in the near future.

That suggests that one of the country's most pressing tasks may be improving the earnings prospects of its youngsters, especially Latino youth, who will have to carry much of the financial burden for the supersize boomer generation.

One of the challenges is that Americans don't seem to be aware of the vital role the next generation will play.

The predominantly white senior citizens and boomers, who account for the majority of the nation's decision makers, often vote against measures to boost services or raise taxes for schools increasingly populated by Hispanics.

That's a problem, because better education is the ticket to prosperity for those on whose tax dollars boomers will rely."

As I've tried to make clear in several prior posts, this issue is really about our long-term economic security as well, especially given the role that China and India are likely to play in the world economy in less than a generation. 

The Journal article clarifies yet another critical facet to this issue, that really needs more mainstream understanding and discussion.

Recommended.

ON THE REALLY GREEN SILICON VALLEY

HOW GREEN IS MY VALLEY

I came upon this photo of Silicon Valley at the San Jose State University website, and it stopped me in my tracks.  No, it wasn't just seeing the who's who of the technology industry all laid out geographically across the Valley.  But that was good too.

No, it was just seeing, almost for the first time, how much GREEN exists in the Bay area. 

Especially when compared to almost any other highly urbanized spot, on any coast, in the developed world.

And most of that GREEN is on the "good" side.  Towards the ocean, where you'd least expect it.

Want to see what I'm talking about a little clearer?

Let's just remove the icons, shall we?  Just for a minute.

You then get this picture, from the USGS site.

Just look at all the green on the left side of the lower peninsula.

This isn't from a few decades ago.  This is recent.  At the beginning of the 21st century, in the heart of Silicon Valley.

Now for someone who's traveled to the Bay area almost every week from New York for over a decade, this should not be a novel revelation. 

Almost anyone who's either lived in the area, or traveled there extensively, can probably relate to even just the joys of driving up and down the 280 vs. the 101 interstate.

And that's regardless of how much traffic might be clogging up those freeways.

We all love open, green spaces. 

But finding them in such abundance despite the obvious, common sense, business, political, and market forces that must prevail, is reason for pause and appreciation.

The reasons for this bucolic, urban reality are many, and unique to the area.  Not the least of it of course is the historic role played by Stanford University.

But regardless of the reasons, it's important to just stop for a second and see it all from a very high level.

Perhaps even zoom down a little and see it a little closer, via say, this link from Smugmug (a great photo site, but that's the subject of another day).

Fred Wilson talks in a post today about how rare and important just simple ball parks are in a great city like New York.  As a New Yorker for over two decades, I couldn't agree with him more.

And in the same vein, it's important for urban communities to have greens parks and spaces. 

So when an entire urban area like Silicon Valley, spanning so many towns and cities, has so much of it, spread out across such distances, and so many institutions, despite all the political and market forces, it is worth acknowledging.  If only for a moment.

ON JOHN DOERR'S CLARION CRY AT TED 2007

MAKE IT SO

John Doerr made one of the most emotional presentations on the need for "Going Green" just now, kicking off the second day of TED 2007. 

It was a clarion cry that got a standing ovation.

The statement that made the biggest impression on me, for obvious reasons, is that "Going Green is going to be a bigger economic opportunity than the Internet".  I'm paraphrasing a bit there, but that's the passionate gist of what John was communicating.

Don't get me wrong, his 18 minute, heart-felt presentation was not just about why "greed is good" while going green.  There were a number of "not-for-profit" policy and governmental initiatives he touched on that potentially move things in a positive direction.

But ultimately, the longer term solution to the ecological issues facing all 6.5 billion of us today, (soon to be 9 billion by the end of this new century), is going to be based in marketplace decisions. 

Ultimately, free markets will best help us figure out the right solutions to employ, the right technologies to develop and/or back, the right policies to embrace, both at the institutional and individual level.

It's only going to work if we can figure out win-win market-place based solutions for all the countries on the planet, not just unilateral actions by institutions and individuals in the "developed world" countries.

Unlike John, I am a total novice when it comes to environmental and "green" issues.  I'm still trying to figure out how to understand all the arguments, counter-arguments, statistics, and counter-statistics, issues, and counter-issues.

Not to mention movies and I'm sure, counter-movies.  (I'm still resonating from Al Gore's presentation of an "Inconsequential Truth from TED 2006).

So, my instinctive, initial reaction on this very important of important issues, is to make sure we keep a fair balance between market-place and mandated policy based solutions.  And make sure we're as inclusive as possible in the debate and discussion on the right solutions to employ.

It's also important in my view that we not ask "developing countries" to curb their economic growth for our previous and current "ecological sins".  Not to mention our ecological guilt, felt both institutionally and individually.

The almost over-whelming challenge is how we make the world ecologically sound for all 6.5 billion of us, while making sure that the OTHER 4.5 billion less fortunate of us are encouraged to become as economically sound as the other 2 billion.

We need to listen to alternative voices as well, like those of controversial folks like Bjorn Lomborg (his much debated book included).

The answers are not at all simple.  Just buying a Toyota Prius won't do at all, other than making one feel good driving alone in the HOV lane in California (which is does indeed by the way, speaking from personal experience).

Coming back to John Doerr's presentation, I agree that technologies both new and old, will have a huge role to play in figuring out the market place solutions.  We can barely imagine how cool some of these technologies will end up being.

And a lot of these technologies, will be Internet technologies.

Because I still believe the Internet is under hyped.

But that's my personal bias.

ON RELIGION AND NATURE vs. NURTURE

BELIEVE IT OR NOT

Two separate New York Times stories converge an issue central to 6 billion people living on the planet today, and the billions who've come before us.

The first, titled "Religious Surge in once-Atheist China surprises Leaders" touches on how about 400 million of the billion plus Chinese are now openly discovering and/or re-discovering religion.  And how that number is growing by leaps and bounds.

The second article is the cover story of this weekend's Sunday Magazine, titled "Why Do We Believe"?

For me, reading this piece first put the familiar issues and questions in the second in a whole different light. 

The second article on China then becomes an example of why the most of the rest of the five billion other people behave in more or less the same way, from childhood to the grave.

Regardless of where one comes out on the question of religion, the New York Times cover story article is a must read. 

It may even take a couple of reads to grasp it's many nuances.

Both are highly recommended for some thought-provoking Sunday reading.

ON THE NEW ISLANDS OF GREENLAND

WARMING SIGNS

The beautiful but unsettling picture below is from an article titled "The Warming of Greenland" in the New York Times Science section.  It represents the recently discovered and provisionally named island of "Uunartoq Qeqertoq", which means "The Warming Island".  As the Times piece explains:

"Mr. (Dennis) Schmitt, a 60-year-old explorer from Berkeley, Calif., had just landed on a newly revealed island 400 miles north of the Arctic Circle in eastern Greenland. It was a moment of triumph: he had discovered the island on an ocean voyage in September 2005. Now, a year later, he and a small expedition team had returned to spend a week climbing peaks, crossing treacherous glaciers and documenting animal and plant life.

Despite its remote location, the island would almost certainly have been discovered, named and mapped almost a century ago when explorers like Jean-Baptiste Charcot and Philippe, Duke of Orleans, charted these coastlines. Would have been discovered had it not been bound to the coast by glacial ice."

The reason the article is unsettling is that the island represents a small piece of a broader, seemingly accelerating trend.  As the piece continues:

"The sudden appearance of the islands is a symptom of an ice sheet going into retreat, scientists say. Greenland is covered by 630,000 cubic miles of ice, enough water to raise global sea levels by 23 feet.

Carl Egede Boggild, a professor of snow-and-ice physics at the University Center of Svalbard, said Greenland could be losing more than 80 cubic miles of ice per year.

That corresponds to three times the volume of all the glaciers in the Alps, Dr. Boggild said.  €œIf you lose that much volume you'd definitely see new islands appear."

And here's the punchline:

"The abrupt acceleration of melting in Greenland has taken climate scientists by surprise. Tidewater glaciers, which discharge ice into the oceans as they break up in the process called calving, have doubled and tripled in speed all over Greenland. Ice shelves are breaking up, and summertime “glacial earthquakes” have been detected within the ice sheet.

€œThe general thinking until very recently was that ice sheets don'€™t react very quickly to climate, said Martin Truffer, a glaciologist at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks.  But that thinking is changing right now, because we're seeing things that people have thought are impossible."

Apparently, the computer models don't seem to account for what's happening in real life.

It's an article that certainly makes one sit up and take notice.  I'm certainly no expert on global climate change, and realize that anecdotal data do not necessarily make a long-term trend.

Anyone have any insights as why this shouldn't be read as an alarming piece?

ON THE "GLOBAL" IN GLOBAL WARMING

CAUSE AND EFFECT

Fred Wilson has some of the best discussions going on his blog.  A case in point are some of the responses to his recent post titled "Late May in January".  Fred makes his point as follows:

"It's 70 degrees in NYC today...

I expect a few more people are making a commitment to buy a hybrid the next time they buy a car."

I know Fred was trying to be provocative here in order to start a discussion and he's done a great job again here.

But anecdotally, this knee-jerk response connecting the concern over global warming with buying a hybrid car, is something I've seen over half a dozen times in cocktail party conversations on both coasts.

At a time when over 2 billion people in the developing world out of the six billion souls on the planet are racing furiously towards "developed world" status, the solution to the global warming is of course a bit more complicated than everyone in the developed world buying a hybrid car.

This point was made more eloquently by a Steve, in a comment responding to Fred's post:

"The desire to see cause and effect in chaos is one of the strongest core components of the human psyche, and arguably explains why organized religion evolved and retains such a strong grip on human society despite (because of?) the lack of any empirical evidence regarding the presence of a deity.

Frighteningly, this aspect of our chemistry or DNA or whatever now powers the urge to see every bad storm or period of odd-ball weather as somehow attributable to a new God -- global warming.

As you know from my previous writings, I believe global warming is occuring. But to turn it into a religion (or a "moral crusade" as Father Gore calls it) can only have painful and counterproductive results.

For example, if all we all do is go out and buy a new car, even a hybrid, we can be assured that environmental change will be far worse than if we keep our heads and take coordinated rational collective action.

Check it out for yourself: food supply livestock around the globe accounts for vastly more greenhouse gas emissions (methane, principally from bovine digestion) than from internal combustion engines in vehicles.

Even more damaging is the continuing changover of the world's surface from wilderness (of any kind, pristine, picturesque or ugly and useless) into farmland. If we think global warming is really such a mortal threat to humankind (not to Nature, which couldn't care less) then we should focus on the subjects scientists do seem to agree on -- that, instead of going to toyota.com, people should figure out how to slow population growth in the third world (its already essentially stopped in the developed world -- the USA is growing only because of immigration and Europe and Russia are shrinking fast) or if thats too cruel, then how to feed 10 billion souls without livestock and modern agriculture."

In the last two days, driving a few hundred kilometres through rural southern India, we've seen countless trees being uprooted on the sides of the road in order to make way for a four-lane highway, upgrading the current two-lane "highway".

We've also seen village after village burning cow dung patties as fuel for their daily meals.  These patties are sold on carts daily as seen in the adjacent picture from Flickr. 

We also saw many, many small, controlled fires clearing away brush for development of some sort.

It's time we stopped blaming ourselves and/or each other, get our perspective re-calibrated on the full range of cause and effect, and then figure out how go about addressing the real scope of the global warming situation.

Oh by the way, buying a hybrid like a Toyota Prius is something I would heartily recommend.  Not just for it's environmental dividends, but also because it's one of the most fun cars to drive. 

Not to mention that in certain states like California, it's one of the few cars certified to be driven in the carpool lanes with a single driver. 

That's no small benefit if you've ever experienced rush hour in an around LA.

 

ON CELEBRITY ADOPTIONS THE WORLD OVER

GOOD INTENTIONS

"Taz" at SepiaMutiny has a post on Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt:

"...Angelina Jolie is adopting an Indian baby to add to her growing international brood, according to US reports.

Sources say the big-hearted actress and partner Brad Pitt have already applied to adopt a tot from an Indian orphanage.

An insider said: "They hope to be able to bring the child home by Christmas.[...] She has said: "I want to create a rainbow family. That's children of different religions and cultures from different countries." [link]

And the disturbing cherry on top...

The source told US magazine Globe: "Whichever they end up with, they'd like to name the child India to honour its homeland." The pair are rumoured to have visited the Priva Darshini orphanage in the last month. [link]

Seriously?!?! It's not like they went around and named the other kids 'Cambodia' and 'Ethiopia.' How come they get cool names like Maddox, Shiloh and Zahara, and you want to name the desi kid 'India?' Like she isn't going to be teased enough..."

This obviously follows in the wake of the controversy over Madonna's adoption of a child from Malawi.

I'm just waiting for some paparazzi stories on a major celebrity from Bollywood and/or Hong Kong/China adopting orphans from the U.S. and Europe. 

It's only a matter of time.

After all, Globalization is not just about economic trade the world over, as I've noted before.

Despite all the potential issues, these adoptions do strike me as giving children in need a turbo-charged, lottery win of a shot at a better life.

So net, net, a good thing. 

The parents in question though do need to constantly focus on how to give their adopted children as much of a normal life under such "abnormal" conditions.

ON OUTSOURCING AMERICAN PILOTS AND BEYOND

GO EAST, OLD MAN

I've posted before on the the idea that globalization and outsourcing is a two-way street, even when things look bleak from an individual's perspective in any given US industry at any given time.  It's good to see anecdotal evidence to bear that out in the real world from time to time.

There's a terrific article in the Wall Street Journal today titled "With Jobs Scarce, U.S. pilots sign on at Foreign Carriers", providing a vivid example.  It states:

"In a new twist on global outsourcing, a flock of U.S. pilots is fleeing the depressed North American airline industry to work in far reaches of the world where aviation is booming.

After the 2001 terrorist attacks stifled air travel and sent the U.S. industry into its deepest decline ever, more than 10,000 U.S. pilots were laid off, and many more took early retirement. Despite subsequent hiring by a few healthy carriers, including Southwest Airlines, thousands haven't been able to find new flying jobs at their old pay grades.

At the same time, the industry is expanding rapidly in China, India, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. As these regions have grown more affluent and loosened aviation restrictions, travel demand has soared. New airlines have started up, existing carriers are adding routes, and hundreds of new jets are on order."

It's a story that's terrific partly because it shows us a familiar issue in a new, positive light.  Most of us are saddened when we read daily about the trials and tribulations of US airlines and their employees. 

And most of the time, we think of the opportunities for these employees dwindling because we project them within the borders of the United States.  So it's a surprising and positive twist, when we look at the same problem beyond US borders.

Furthermore, this is a trend that has long legs, given the years it takes to set up flight schools and train pilots the world over.  The article continues:

"Aerospace giant Boeing Co. estimates the global jet fleet will grow to more than 35,000 airplanes in 2024, from fewer than 17,000 in 2004. Boeing pegs demand for new pilots at nearly 18,000 a year through 2024.

China alone will need more than 35,000 new pilots over 20 years, and the rest of Asia will need 56,500, the company estimates. Many countries are currently unable to train enough pilots at home."

We need to keep reminding ourselves that the world is a very big place.  And the best job opportunities for our citizens aren't always just at home.

Admittedly, relocation to a different place, whether it's a US pilot moving to India or China, or a US auto worker moving from Detroit to a different state to work for an Asian automaker.

Our forefathers prospered by going west. 

Even in my case, as someone born in India, my father emigrated to the Middle East at age seventeen for better opportunities.  I inadvertently followed in his footsteps by traveling further west to the U.S., also at 17,  for a college education.  I wasn't able to go home to see my parents and sister until after graduating three years later, given financial limitations and educational imperatives.

Moving is hard to do, but can be good for the long-term, especially for one's children.

It's a lesson already learned by countless citizens of developing countries seeking a better life through immigration, both legal and illegal, in developed countries. 

Slate has an interesting article on the subject, along with the adjacent cartoon--click for larger image.

There may come a time when the opportunities are reversed in not just one industry here or there, but many industries all over.

And more of our citizens may find opportunities beyond our geographical borders.

Roughly two billion people in China and India, about a third of humanity, are racing towards our current standards of living, and will likely achieve them over the next few decades.  Another third are following in their footsteps across today's "third-world" countries.  And far bigger percentages of these populations are younger than in Europe and America. 

There are only 300 million or so Americans, growing to a little under half a billion over the same time frame.  Not just trade, but job opportunities are going to be more global for Americans than ever before.

We need to always keep this in mind, through political, economic and financial cycles both short and long.  Especially through political cycles, like now.

Our kids will likely be the richer for it.

ON "MARGIN SURPLUS" AND WILE E. COYOTE

IT'S DIFFERENT THIS TIME?

Tom Evslin pointed me to this piece via his interesting post.

The  good piece in question is an article by Andy Kessler in the Wall Street Journal( via his website), that comments on the "it's the worst of times, best of times" state of the world he sees right now:

"Oil is over $70 a barrel, Iran’s got nukes, and soon they’ll price gas per ounce. The Fed has jacked short rates up 15 times....

The yield curve is as flat as a subsidized Iowa corn field.

There’s $1 trillion of teaser rate Adjustable Rate Mortgages about to burst all over Southern California and ’burbs everywhere. Gold is over $600, commodities are roaring, the dollar is dropping again, there are trade deficits as far as the eye can see and GM is on life support.

Drunken sailors in D.C. are running a sea of red ink and every time it’s sunny, some antigrowth global warming nutjob wags his finger at your $100-to-fill SUV. It feels like the ’70s all over again, a blaze of malaise. Except . . .

The stock market is like the little engine that could, and seems to go up everyday. The Dow is just shy of its all-time high, the S&P 500 is over 1300 and Nasdaq has doubled in three years. Yee-ha, bull markets are fun, but something doesn’t add up. They say the stock market climbs the Wall of Worry, but this is ridiculous—it’s got the Wile E. Coyote Acme Jetpack on."

Andy then goes on to explain his theory of a "Margin Surplus" that may account for the better world that the market sees as a whole.  It's a theory he's talked about before and is worth reading.

But then I remembered what happened to Wile E. Coyote with his Acme Jetpack on full blast...every time. (Image via Yahoo!)

SPLATT!

Don't get me wrong...my tendency is generally to see the glass half full than empty. 

And I somewhat buy into this whole business of "we'll do all the creative design stuff (the iPod is the iconic example), then send it overseas to be made inexpensively, generate a whole lot of revenues for those overseas companies, which then find their way back into the stocks of the Apples, the Microsofts, the Googles etc, that then trade to high valuations and don't get accounted for in the trade statistics", that Andy talks about. (I'm paraphrasing here of course).

But then I look at his impressive list of woes above, and feel compelled to add some that directly impinge on the very process of "Margin Surplus" creation he talks about.  I've provided links to my previous posts where I've expounded on these additional walls of worry:

• IMMIGRATION BACKLASH:  We're putting out a "foreigners not welcome" sign in the name of national security.  We're forgetting the very unique, secret ingredient that made America the most powerful nation in the world.
• TRADE WAR SABRE-RATTLING:  Some members of our Congress  are threatening 27% tariffs on trade with China, one of the key components of the "Margin Surplus" production chain outlined by Andy above.
• CREAKY PATENT SYSTEM:  The Patent Process has gone amok, where the main windfall from intellectual property accrues to smart and quick lawyers rather than people and companies who actually convert ideas into market-leading products and services.
• BROADBAND OLIGOPOLIES:  Congress continues to give more and more power to the oligopolies who control the deployment of both wired and wireless broadband, be they from the cable, telco and/or cellular industries.  Local and State governments are also guilty here, beholden as many of them are to lobbying clout of the large oligopolists.
• MAINTAIN MYTH OF SPECTRUM SCARCITY:  In an age where technologies are eroding the very need to think of spectrum as a scarce commodity, our regulators continue to maintain a system that is holding back a whole lot of innovative products and services, not to mention new companies and jobs.
• GOING OVERBOARD ON DIGITAL COPYRIGHT PROTECTION:  We've lost the balance between protecting copyrights and intellectual property, and allowing for not just fair use, but innovation built on prior innovation and creativity.  Again, there are moves afoot in both houses in Congress to extend these protections to the point of hampering the very digital innovation that fuels the iPod-driven "Margin Surplus" that Andy applauds.

This is not meant to be a comprehensive list, but are some of the reasons why Wile E. Coyote may not have the jet pack work for him again this time.