Here’s another quick roundup of recent, interesting talks.

Saul Griffith: Inventing a super-kite to tap the energy of high-altitude wind

This is a short update on what Makani Power is up to. Some inspiring videos of their efforts to harness high-altitude wind power (the second most-plentiful renewable energy source, after solar.) It looks like they have the autonomous kite-flying control systems working; impressive!

P.W. Singer: Military robots and the future of war

“In this powerful talk, P.W. Singer shows how the widespread use of robots in war is changing the realities of combat.” Singer discusses the reality of automated warfare currently in play in the Middle East. There are many complicated, troubling implications of this shift in warfare. For example, remote killing distances our soldiers from the physical violence that they inflict. The violence is put at a remove, and the resulting recorded media loses its context. A lot of clips of drone strikes are online. Soldiers will often to refer to them as “war porn” and set them to music. On the other hand, the availability of this systematic video and data collection provides opportunities for public oversight.

Another point: automated warfare may lose for us the war of ideas that we are waging against insurgent groups. Here’s the contrast between the message intended and the perception on the ground:

Bush administration official: “It plays to our strength. The thing that scares people is our technology.”

Lebanese news editor: “This is just another sign of the cold-hearted, cruel Israelis and Americans who are cowards because they send out machines to fight us. They don’t want to fight us like real men. They are afraid to fight. We just have to kill a few of their soldiers to defeat them.”

Dan Ariely asks, Are we in control of our own decisions?

“Behavioral economist Dan Ariely, the author of Predictably Irrational, uses classic visual illusions and his own counterintuitive (and sometimes shocking) research findings to show how we’re not as rational as we think when we make decisions.”

Ariely gives a quick summary of several studies that show clearly how the presentation of various options can affect the choices we make. There are clear implications on user interface design, here.

Bitfrost is a collection of security approaches developed by the OLPC group with the intent of substantially increasing system security. It’s an enlightening read:

http://dev.laptop.org/git/security/tree/bitfrost.txt

They cover everything from how to secure the BIOS to how to deter theft in the delivery chain for the actual laptops as they go from manufacture to a school in the boondocks.

On the name:

In Norse mythology, Bifröst is the bridge which keeps mortals, inhabitants of the realm of Midgard, from venturing into Asgard, the realm of the gods. In effect, Bifröst is a powerful security system designed to keep out unwanted intruders.

This is not why the OLPC security platform’s name is a play on the name of the mythical bridge, however. What’s particularly interesting about Bifröst is a story that 12th century Icelandic historian and poet Snorri Sturluson tells in the first part of his poetics manual called the Prose Edda. Here is the relevant excerpt from the 1916 translation by Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur:

Then said Gangleri: “What is the way to heaven from earth?”

Then Hárr answered, and laughed aloud: “Now, that is not wisely asked; has it not been told thee, that the gods made a bridge from earth, to heaven, called Bifröst? Thou must have seen it; it may be that ye call it rainbow.’ It is of three colors, and very strong, and made with cunning and with more magic art than other works of craftsmanship. But strong as it is, yet must it be broken, when the sons of Múspell shall go forth harrying and ride it, and swim their horses over great rivers; thus they shall proceed.”

Then said Gangleri: “To my thinking the gods did not build the bridge honestly, seeing that it could be broken, and they able to make it as they would.”

Then Hárr replied: “The gods are not deserving of reproof because of this work of skill: a good bridge is Bifröst, but nothing in this world is of such nature that it may be relied on when the sons of Múspell go a-harrying.”

This story is quite remarkable, as it amounts to a 13th century recognition of the idea that there’s no such thing as a perfect security system.

To borrow Sturluson’s terms, we believe we’ve imbued the OLPC security system with cunning and more magic art than other similar works of craftmanship — but not for a second do we believe we’ve designed something that cannot be broken when talented, determined and resourceful attackers go forth harrying. Indeed, this was not the goal. The goal was to significantly raise the bar from the current, deeply unsatisfactory, state of desktop security. We believe Bitfrost accomplishes this, though only once the laptops are deployed in the field will we be able to tell with some degree of certainty whether we have succeeded.

The name is also reminiscent of the ICE (Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics) that William Gibson made up for Neuromancer.

We at False Profit love us our meetings. We have community meetings, event planning meetings, investor meetings, house meetings, etc. I deal with meetings at work, too, but believe it or not there are fewer of those than in my personal life.

The most important parts of having good meetings (e.g. having a good moderator) aren’t about the software tools, but bad tools can sink you. So, I wanted to mention a few great ones. The zeitgeist these days is tiny, easy-to-use tools that do one thing extremely well. Most of the following fall into this pattern: no installation, completely web-based, no user accounts, even. Click and go, no fuss, no muss.

Getting everyone there

It used to be that everyone needed MSFT Outlook or some other massive workgroup software turd heap. Then came Google Calendar, which was web-based and better. But for true ninja scheduling, check out online tools like Doodle.com. You won’t even need a user acount; just start selecting a bunch of potential meeting times and dates, then email out the link. Anyone else can come in and select which subset of times they can make. An optimal consensus emerges. No fuss!

Discussing, Taking Notes

There’s the in-person part, of course, but we can also use Skype or web chat like Google Talk to loop in people from afar. There may be no-account tools to use here, too. A true ninja enhancement is to use a collaborative, real-time text editor. Anyone in the meeting can start typing anywhere in the document. You can use it as chat, or you can use it to organize the meeting agenda in real-time and take notes. One person can go ahead and take down the latest, others can go in behind and clean up the details. Etherpad is a great one I’ve seen, requiring no account. Check out this awesome screencast to see it in action. It works just like Doodle: you start a document, and then email out the link to others. No muss!

Recording for Posterity

Wikis are the way to go, here. They’ll require an account, but this is because because this is persistent information. We use SocialText, Google Sites, PBWorks (formerly PBwiki), and others. After a meeting, we can simply paste the contents of the collaborative editing session into the wiki.

That’s it for software tools. To close, here’s a grab-bag of some more random meeting hacks:

• If you’re mapping out a complex argument together, the right visual structure to create is the tree-like argument map
• If you find that people don’t arrive on time, set the meeting to start at a very “un-round” time, like 7:53PM. Psychologically, this feels like “we’re starting exactly at the specified time” versus “we’ll start some time around eight; I’ll just show up at eight fifteen.”
• If a meeting can be concluded in fifteen minutes or so, but people are being long-winded, try holding it standing up. People are much more likely to pontificate from the comfort of a chair. A standing meeting feels more like a quick huddle.

Here’s a cool video of an undercover operation in Goma to arrest a gorilla trafficker and some of the subsequent efforts to nurse the baby gorilla back to health.

I was curious about the high production quality of the piece. It was produced by Virunga National Park’s rangers, who have their own website. It’s sophisticated and very well designed, with ongoing media production and tools for distributed fundraising. Clearly, this is a well-funded project.

I’m surprised to see them have such a slick public presence, but hopefully this is a good sign. Preservation of the park is in direct competition with its other, more destructive economic value: charcoal production. The charcoal producers and park rangers have been in conflict for many years, now (The gorilla murders that took place a few years ago were a direct result.) Hopefully, with enough outside funding, preservation and ecotourism will become the more valuable product of the region.