Blooming with hydrogen

I have actually talked about two technologies that I just realized could get us off the grid entirely, if they actually pan out. One is the Bloom Box and the other is Dan Nocera’s photolysis procedure.

The latter can take sunlight and create hydrogen and oxygen, which can then be stored. Later, when the sun has gone down, the hydrogen and oxygen can be fed through the Bloom Box to make electricity. And recreate the water that was originally split into the gases.

This is also carbon neutral, with no carbon dioxide being produced.

We are a ways from real commercialization of these two technologies, particularly in the home. But they both use relatively cheap and abundant materials, so costs may get much lower quite soon. And with increasing electricity costs, the entire affair, including solar panels, might pay for itself fairly quickly. Especially if you generate enough electricity to send some back to the grid.

[Listening to: Young Man Blues from the album "Thirty Years Of Maximum R&B (Disc 2)" by The Who]

The key is understand how complex systems work

by curiouslee

Firing Is Too Merciful: How James Cameron Leads
[Via HarvardBusiness.org]

If you sat through the endless list of credits for Avatar, you saw that it took about 3,000 people to make the CGI epic, which has now grossed more than $2.5 billion worldwide, shattering box office records, earning nine Oscar nominations and reinventing cinema for the digital age. The boss of all those people was director James Cameron.

While researching my book, The Futurist: The Life and Films of James Cameron, I watched the director’s often controversial management style up close. One of Hollywood’s most innovative filmmakers, Cameron is also one of its toughest taskmasters, a man who ran notoriously grueling sets for movies like The Terminator, Aliens and Titanic. After Titanic, Cameron spent years away from the movie business indulging a lifelong passion–deep ocean exploration. The experiences he had leading groups on the open sea tempered the director’s management style. But working for Cameron is still roughing it by Hollywood standards. From my seat on the Avatar set, these are the rules he manages by:

Break New Ground
“It’s Avatar, dude, nothing works the first time,” read a whiteboard in the spare Los Angeles warehouse that served as the sci fi film’s motion capture soundstage. Breaking new ground is Cameron’s raison d’être — nothing interests this man unless it’s hard to do. But innovation has also become a way of bonding his teams, both on Avatar and on his deep sea expeditions. “We’re out in the wilderness working far beyond the borders of the known,” Cameron says, comparing his CG and undersea projects. “We’re doing extraordinary things that outsiders would not even understand.” For Cameron, a sense of exploration isn’t just personally enriching, it’s a crucial tool for motivating and uniting his teams.

Firing Is Too Merciful
Everyone who has been part of Cameron’s cast and crew has bitter war stories about working for him, and yet they all seem to forget them when they’re clutching Oscars and cashing checks. Many Cameron alumni will share a story from their first film with him, a day they were sure they were going to be fired, almost hoped for it. But Cameron rarely fires people. “Firing is too merciful,” he says. Instead he tests their endurance for long hours, hard tasks, and harsh criticism. Survivors tend to surprise themselves by turning in the best work of their careers, and signing on for Cameron’s next project.

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Read the entire list. It sounds a lot like Steve Jobs and other successful technology leaders. I think that both of them have the ability to understand, at least in a metaphorical way, the entire complex system of their chosen field. The movies that Cameron makes, or the technology that Jobs uses, will not just sell themselves. Good enough will not do it in the long run.

Making sure every detail is the best it can be. Bringing together creative people who want to be challenged, and then challenge them. Give them defined problems and make them solve them. Have a vision that inspires. Not micromanaging but micro-leading. Tell them what they have to do then ‘make’ them do it.

Managing creative people and harnessing their innovative spirits takes a very different approach than managing accountants. Jobs and Cameron seem to instinctively know this and make the right management moves.

[Listening to: This Is It from the album "Testament: The Complete Slash Recordings [Disc 1]” by The Blasters]

Disruption rather than deviancy

[Crossposted at SpreadingScience]

by notsogoodphotography

Why every team needs a deviant.
[Via Creativity Central]

Most of us in the creativity brainstorming world are professional deviants.

We don’t typically use the term deviant, preferring the less harsh term gadfly. Or in a politically correct world, idea catalyst.

But deviant is good enough for J. Richard Hackman, the Edgar Pierce Professor of Social and Organizational Psychology at Harvard University and leading expert on teams. Hackman has spent his career exploring and questioning — the wisdom of teams.

In a recent interview with Diane Coutu called “Why Teams Don’t Work” he talks about why every team needs a deviant.

Coutu: “If teams need to stay together to achieve the best performance, how do you prevent them from becoming complacent?”

Hackman: “This is where what I call the deviant comes in. Every team needs a deviant, someone who can help the team by challenging the tendency to want too much homogeneity, which can stifle creativity and learning.

Deviants are the ones who stand back and say, “Well wait a minute, why are we even doing this at all?” What if we looked at the thing backwards or turned it inside out?” That’s when people say, “Oh, no, no, no, that’s ridiculous” and so the discussion about what’s ridiculous comes up…the deviant opens up more ideas and that gives you a lot more originality.

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I view these types more as disruptors than deviants. They look at things differently, bring in novel ideas from outside the group and generally disrupt the ‘easy flow’ of a strong team. They look to stretch or beak some of the constraints that we use, in order to make sure we really need them.They are often disliked by the rest of the group and will simply shut up if not provided even a little support.

And that is what most teams do, shut them up. Shunning is usually the main approach. The disruptors then quickly understand and stop disrupting. The inability to support any disruption, often because it may seem almost insubordinate, leads to the failure of many teams.

But, even a little support will go a long way. Some useful facilitation of disruptors, allowing their ideas to be brought out and examined, can have a huge effect on the general creativity of the group. Good managers need to realize this because, as has been shown in many studies, the people that act as useful filters for this sort of disruptive information, the ones that help the community adopt these disruptive ideas, are often the ones that are viewed as thought leaders in the organization and on the track to greater things.

Unfortunately, at the moment, few organizations properly recognize the disruptor. Maybe that will change.

[Listening to: The Best Of Times [Instrumental] from the album “Black Clouds & Silver Linings [Disc 3]” by Dream Theater]

Not in jeans – Jobs at the oscars

Steve Jobs looking healthy and snazzy at the Oscars
[Via Edible Apple]

You might have heard that Steve Jobs was at the Oscars this past Sunday. Here he is looking healthy, snazzy, and surprisingly approachable on the red carpet.

via Flickr

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Jobs always wears jeans and a simple black shirt. At least that is what almost every other published image shows. He looks good in a tux but my mind still has a hard time seeing him as Steve Jobs.

He does look nice and relaxed. He has to be happy that Pixar won another academy award and that the final date for shipping the iPad had been set so that the commercial would be run.

[Listening to: The Letter (Live) from the album "Classic Cocker" by Joe Cocker]

Displaying internal data to make a difference

from Panic web site

The Panic Status Board
[Via Daring Fireball]

If I didn’t love these guys I would hate them.

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If done well, this sort of thing can be really useful. It puts information into the hands of people in a way that permits them to do something with the data. It helps get them to a place where decisions can be made, faster.

The fact that they could put something like this together as rapidly as they did is another example of how new technologies are changing the balance of power.

[Listening to: The Snow Goose - Freefall (Marquee Club, 30/Oct/74) from the album "The Snow Goose" by Camel]

The group behavior of patents

by nDevilTV

Apple talks tough to handset makers
[Via Brainstorm Tech: Technology blogs, news and analysis from Fortune Magazine » Apple 2.0]

The HTC lawsuit capped blunt talks that have reportedly shaken their faith in Google

Oppenheimer’s Yair Reiner issued a behind-the-scenes report Tuesday that sheds a lot of light on the patent suits Apple (AAPL) filed last week against HTC, the Taiwanese smartphone maker.

Citing “industry checks,” Reiner writes that:

“Starting in January, Apple launched a series of C-Level discussions with tier-1 handset makers to underscore its growing displeasure at seeing its iPhone-related IP [intellectual property] infringed. The lawsuit filed against HTC thus appears to be Apple’s way of putting a public, lawyered-up exclamation point on a series of blunt conversations that have been occurring behind closed doors.

“Our checks also suggest that these warning shots are meaningfully disrupting the development roadmaps for would-be iPhone killers. Rival software and hardware teams are going back to the drawing board to look for work-arounds. Lawyers are redoubling efforts to gauge potential defensive and offensive responses. And strategy teams are working to chart OS strategies that are better hedged.”

The story, as Reiner tells it, actually began a year earlier, in January 2009.

That’s when Apple COO Tim Cook, standing in for the ailing Steve Jobs, warned in an earnings call that when it came to companies trying to reproduce the iPhone’s user experience,

“we will not stand for having our IP ripped off and we’ll use whatever weapons we have at our disposal. I don’t know that I can be more clear than that.”

That original warning, Reiner says, was read relatively narrowly as referring to Apple’s multi-touch technology, and it seemed to have some impact. In the months that followed, the major handset manufacturers — including LG, Samsung, and Nokia (NOK) — stayed clear of multi-touch. The most prominent exception was the Palm (PALM) Pre, which was well received in the press but didn’t represent a strategic threat to Apple.

[More]

Makes sense. The purpose of the lawsuits is not just to go after HTC and Google but to send a message to anyone else that would hope to create a cell phone copying Apple’s technology. Thus, at worst, Apple will only have to deal with one or a few copiers, rather than the whole industry.

In this case, then, the length of going to trial, etc. works in their favor. The uncertainty of the process makes it more and more likely that other manufacturers will take another track.

Of course, this is the purpose of patents – to force other companies to find a way around the patent. This constraint often results in much greater creativity and innovation than is simple copying was allowed.

[Listening to: Devil In Her Heart from the album "With The Beatles [2009 Stereo Remaster]” by The Beatles]

Another in a series of why I love the web

Early Morning Open Thread: Cool Tech
[Via Balloon Juice]

Great article on low-cost, high-value technology from the Boston Globe:

Some students go to MIT to plumb the mysteries of the atom, or of outer space, or to press the limits of computer science. Amos Winter went another way: He’s trying to revolutionize the wheelchair. Specifically, he wants to make that most familiar aid to the disabled work in the Third World, where roads are bad, money tight, and the need immense.

A doctoral candidate in mechanical engineering, Winter calls his invention the Leveraged Freedom Chair – leveraged because it is powered by hand levers.

Abdullah Munish has another name for it. “I call it my little angel machine,’’ he said.

For years after he survived a car crash but lost the use of his legs, Munish struggled to move his wheelchair along the rutted, hilly roads of his hometown in Tanzania. Frustrated, he often just stayed indoors, and lost touch with friends and relatives.

Now, with the help of Winter’s invention, he has reclaimed his freedom and sense of connection. He can push himself up the hill to a neighborhood playing field where he can once again toss a ball around with friends. He can scoot along the gravel paths of Moshi to visit people again. “We believers, we know that anything that changes your life in terms of mobility, that is something that comes from heaven,’’ said Munish. A 31-year-old wheelchair technician, he is one of six wheelchair users in Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda who have been testing the prototype since August.

The genius of Winter’s wheelchair lies in the design of the long ratchet-like levers that power it. Hold them low, near the axle, and it goes fast. Hold them higher up, and it generates a lot of torque, making it possible to climb slowly but surely over rocks and up hills. In effect, you change gears by changing your body geometry.

That helps keep the wheelchair simple and inexpensive, and may make it affordable to some of the 20 million people who need wheelchairs in the developing world…

Click through the link, and there’s a short video and an interactive graphic along with the rest of the story—exactly the sort of value-added content that the internet was supposed to enable, but all too rarely does.

And, frankly, I suspect there are plenty of people here in The Greatest Country in the World whose lives would be improved by a Leveraged Freedom Chair.

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First is seeing the link on one web site. Clicking through to the Boston Globe article not only provides some great writing about this work but a wonderful video with the people who have developed this wheelchair.

Ten years ago, the only way to have seen this would to either be in Boston, subscribe to the Globe and hope there was something on local TV. Living in Seattle, I would have to hope that the local media picked it up on a news wire or something.

Today, I can find it myself and see it directly. Using effective filters, such as a wide range of blogs online, these sorts of news items can be much more widely disseminated than before.

[Listening to: Jimi Thing (Live) from the album "The Central Park Concert (Live)" by Dave Matthews Band]

Bacteria and fat

AP, BBC, Independent, etc: Want biodiversity? Time for a microbial gut check.
[Via Knight Science Journalism Tracker]

.

A lot of us already have heard that people are outnumbered by other creatures and that’s not even counting things that don’t live under our own skins. Ten times more individual microbes occupy the average person’s digestive tract than that person has individual human cells in his or her own body.

But now the census has gotten beyond counting heads and done some demography. A report in Nature has it that, after analysis of different species of bacteria and other microflora in the human gut, that they should in aggregate be considered a second human genome. Every person, it appears, has around 160 different species. Everyone does not have the same ones, but there is a good deal of overlap.

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Another recent article indicated that intestinal bacteria play a big role in obesity, diabetes, etc. They transferred bacteria from obese mice to normal mice. The normal mice then became obese, diabetic, etc. It may be that a good way to lose weight will be to lose weight and then to repopulate the gut with ‘good’ bacteria.

Assuming that weight gain is due to weak will may be a very poor assumption. It could be the bacteria.

Interestingly, it has been proposed that the appendix could be involved for repopulating the gut following a bout of diarrhea. I wonder if the appendix houses ‘thin’ bacteria or ‘fat’ bacteria? Do people who have had appendectomies show any difference in the gut bacteria they house?

[Listening to: Swollen Summer from the album "The Bravery" by The Bravery]

I’m shocked, shocked to find that hype is going on in here

by 1horsetown

Alzheimer’s excitement? Try, try again
[Via Knight Science Journalism Tracker]

It was a good drug, an important drug, maybe the drug. It was the drug that might finally bring Alzheimer’s disease to heel.

A study of Russian subjects published in The Lancet in 2008 found that the drug, dimebon, “significantly improved the clinical course of patients with mild-to-moderate Alzheimer’s disease.”

“Dimebon shines as Alzheimer’s therapy,” Daniel J. DeNoon of WebMD wrote in July, 2008. He went on to say that the drug “is now only one clinical trial away from approval.”

Turns out, it was a rather large step away from approval. The results of that one remaining study were released last week, and the breathless headlines of the summer of 2008 have now crumbled into dust.

The Wall Street Journal, along with many others, reported last week that dimebon was no more effective than a Cinnabon. (The Journal didn’t put it exactly that way.)

The drug, the Journal said, “failed to meet its primary and secondary goals—improving thinking ability and overall daily function over six months in patients with mild-to-moderate Alzheimer’s disease,” according to the Journal’s newswire.

Robert Langreth at Forbes went further, dissecting the hype. While the media were parroting the claim that this could be the first drug to slow the course of Alzheimer’s disease, others were suspicious.

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Paul asks a great question here about whether the reporters that helped hype the story will pay any price. Not so much since they were successful. They sold papers. Being balanced or cautious is really secondary. That does not help sell the story.

The hype never rubs off on the reporters. Who will be made to look bad here are the ‘scientists.’ Not just the ones who fed the hype but also the scientists who urged caution. Because reporters will not really separate them out for the readers.

It will just be one more reason for people to not believe what scientists say. It helps feed the misrepresentation of research that is so valuable to vested interests. Researchers lose their reputation but I have yet to see a reporter lose theirs because of the hyped science they write about.

The pundits who get the most airtime on TV are not those that provide a balanced view. They are those that present a one-sided, sometime hysterical view, hyping their points as much as possible.

It is just a shame when it is people’s lives that are involved. This is why double-blind clinical trials are done. So that the truth can penetrate the hype. With little help from reporters.

That is why sites such as the KS journalism tracker are really useful. Because they provide a place for reporters to be held accountable.

And if you want a really great place to learn about research and hype in a rational, balanced way, check out the National Health Services Choices Behind the Headline pages. They have a great format to provide real information without the hype. It maintains perspective.