Michael Jung - continued!

As much as I love to write here in a simple manner on wordpress.com. It strikes me when I think that there are much more possibilities to communicate via the medium of a Blog, Tweet, Video, MP3 and so forth. And realizing that wordpress.com as hosting service is not really a wall. But I perceive it as wall when it comes to editing and customizing.

I would like to write about the Carrefour conflict in China - that it isn’t allowed to demonstrate in China - and Politicians have to enter the stage to keep people calm and negotiate.

That thousands of people and families will suffer from the greed of many bankers in the previous months, the bail-outs and looming bankruptcies world wide.

That Barack Obama is handling the Presidential race very well despite many obstacles and ugly attacks from Hillary and Co.

But as much as I love to put in my time her - my need to evolve is as much as strong than that. And I will try to put together a new Blog with much more from me, to share and to communicate. Waiting for my UCAS applications to come back in and start studying full-time in September 08.

I hope for everyone that they will enjoy the spring time - warmer mornings, longer evenings outside with nice sunsets, birds, friends and family together and successful exams.

Greetings form Michael,

- with new devoutness for Web 2.0 and it’s fans.

I have a terrible memory for names. I tell most people while meeting the first time that I’ll remember their face and personality - but not the name. 

But I like to read and understand other languages like Japanese for instance.  Listening, grasping and enjoying during the learning process is a lot of fun and entertaining. So I did found this Blog entry here very inspiring.

Besides, Westerners, with their stable countries and solid borders, tend to forget that for much of the world (and indeed for much of Western history) being polyglot has been a necessity for survival. On the Ukrainian-Slovakian border, a region across which the borders of empires have swept back and forth like windscreen wipers, I met office assistants who were fluent in Ukrainian, Slovakian, Hungarian and Russian as well as German or English; nobody found this remarkable. Israel, where I live now, is still home to post-war immigrants from Europe who speak seven or eight languages. Amos Oz, the prominent Israeli novelist, writes in his autobiography of growing up in a house that had books in 16 languages on its shelves.

My obsession, on which I’ll be expounding this week, is how languages are constructed and the differences in how they express things.

To be honest, it borders on nerdiness. I spend spare moments wondering why a sexy outfit “gets attention” in English but “calls attention” in Spanish, or why a “working assumption” is rendered in Hebrew as an “assumption of work”. Had I stayed in England, I would surely spend weekends on platforms writing down train numbers.

Read on here about the Hebrew and Arabic differences in historic terms.

OK - I am offline since the 10th of March (no Internet and no telephone line) due to the incompetence and complex, rigid processes from TalkTalk.co.uk. Not able to cancel a cancellation or change the owner of the contract (within 47 days, they can only send paperwork for this process). On Monday my land line went dead and had to buy (13th of March) a new land line (£129 + £20 deposit because no credit check was possible - because of that I couldn’t order online and recieve other benefits from ordering online - WTF) from BT in order to get broadband from any other provider (Oragne, Virgin, TalkTalk).

I am pretty much @~#£4%*&. Customer service or customer orientated service offerings is something which the telecoms industry, here in UK, has never heard of.

W O R K 

I am pretty much frustrated becaus of work, management, managerial decision making and people skills etcetera.

On a scale from 0-10, I am rock bottom 0. Completely demotivated.

University

Nothing new - doing good, an A for the last Presentation (strategic management, change etc.) and for the Essay and the second Presentation I expect the same. I realize that I have a lot more time on my hands now without the Internet, for reading additional books and the whole weekly Economist prind edition.

Philanthropy / Sport Relief Day - 14th March 2008

I’ll upload some photos from Sport Relief Day ASAP when my Internet is back. I took mainly some calls for donations that evening. Was a nice day.

cya all later online. Michael.

Found here.

- so true. Have to work with that ‘companys’ apps every day. Reminds me about the story that Palm (now a division of U.S Robotics) has a guy, ‘Tab counter’, who counts the tabs/clicks you have to do to reach a certain function. And Jeff Hawkins says everything should be no more than 3 clicks away.

Ok - I read a lot of books about startups (and ordered more here - and certainly will try it myself) and the early stage to seed funding and investor-rounds etcetera. But this what the CEO from Mahalo wrote is (I think) the best on-top view for guys who didn’t considered their balance-sheet and costs while writing a business plan or talking with possible contacts (talk is cheap).

• Buy Macintosh computers, save money on an IT department
• Buy second monitors for everyone, they will save at least 30 minutes a day, which is 100 hours a year… which is at least $2,000 a year…. which is $6,000 over three years. A second monitor cost $300-500 depending on which one you get. That means you’re getting 10-20x return on your investment… and you’ve got a happy team member.
• Buy cheap tables and expensive chairs. Tables are a complete rip off. We buy stainless steel restaurant tables that are $100 and $600 Areon chairs. Total cost per workstation? $700. Compare that to buying a $500-$1,500 cube/designer workstation. The chair is the only thing that matters… invest in it.
• Don’t buy a phone system. No one will use it. No one at Mahalo has a desk phone except the admin folks. Everyone else is on IRC, chat, and their cell phone. Everyone has a cell phone, folks would rather get calls on it, and 99% of communication is NOT on the phone. Savings? At least $500 a year per person… 50 people over three years? $75-100k

There is a lot of common sense behind these points, but experience and work environment knowledge/managerial knowledge, too. Clearly - there are points which might not be understandable from an employees perspective. But in times of an recession where money is not that cheap any more as it was before the 2000 tech-bubble or now after the credit crunch - this post and opinion of an CEO who has Goggle and other search sites as competitor makes more sense than ever before November 2007. You need to be a warrior, you need to have a great team, you need to be a minimalist - to run your company on low key cost.

And then there is the evolving thesis from others (Michael Arrington); (which know the industry in-side-out)

I’m not saying you should chain people to the desk. I’m not saying you should make them work 24 hours a day. What I’m saying is that you should hire people who work 24 hours a day because there is nothing else they’d rather do. If you’ve got a product to launch and you’re ultimately trying to disrupt a bigger and better funded company, it’s likely that you are going to need a superhuman effort from the team. I doubt Google’s early employees complained about the hours (and take a wild guess as to why Google gives employees free lunch and free dinners).

And the ones who have their say on the topic and fail Jason on his thesis. Ok - you have to deal with it when you write things like;

• Fire people who are not workaholics. don’t love their work… come on folks, this is startup life, it’s not a game. don’t work at a startup if you’re not into it–go work at the post office or stabucks if you’re not into it you want balance in your life. For realz.

I am not proclaiming that everything is black and white - it’s more like grey in various shadings and other approaches might work too. But it depends more on what budget you have and how far your are to your black balance sheet - this is a real business finance issue. When you have not the money for certain things than you don’t have it and can’t spend it.

And then there is the HR perspective. Start-up life is for realz people - there is nothing in bread and butter. It’s not a 8 to 4 job. You don’t have to deal with corporate bullshit and managerial hierarchy. You applied for such a job in such a company (you can’t called a company in real terms cmon) to create things, to change things, to inspire people. To make the world in any kind of topic a better world to life. And therefor people will remember you and know you. That’s your opportunity. It’s a life-style and suits not everybody.

Take as an example any open source project - who pays this people? Nobody! Why they are spending their evenings and weekends on writing code? Gain experience and learn new stuff, connect with like minded people, get inspired and inspire others, build up your CV (it’s not padding).

And to make sacrifices is a done deal which everyone should know when he makes a step into this industry. Welcome into my world, in the real world of tomorrow!

- my 2p,

Michael.

OK - this could be an awesome project or just like any otter bad PC-Game movie adaption ala Doom or Hitman. There is still hope that somebody gets it and produce some quality work like Superman (the last one) or the Spiderman Trilogy. We have just to wait until some facts and credits are released from reliable sources.

About the Movie

And as I just found out - that some fans are already investigating and Wikipedia and IMDB have a lot information about this project which is since 2002 under development.

Dragonball is a 2008 live action film adaptation of the Dragon Ball franchise. The film follows Goku, played by Justin Chatwin, and his quest to obtain the mystical Dragonballs before the evil Piccolo (Piccolo Daimao arc (chapters 135-194) its fairly in the very first half of Drangon Ball series containing 519 chapters), played by James Marsters, does. The film began development in 2002, and is directed by James Wong and produced by Stephen Chow. It is scheduled for worldwide release on August 15, 2008.

And in case this is true - that it starts with the first Saga and ends in the fight against Piccolo*legendary*, we have so much room for more to come like the Saga of Vegeta, Saga of Freeza, Saga of Cell where Son Goku defeats the villain and the last Saga about Buu (Majin Buu). And we havn’t touched yet DBZ.

In case James Wong (Director, Screenplay, Adoption) and Ben Ramsey (Adaptation) and others exceed exceptionally their current credits, we will hope for the best, that this could be an comic/manga adoption which will enrich the movie world.

And YES - I watched many many many hours of DB and DBZ way back in my childhood.

Dragon Ball

‘Dragon Ball’ the manga series itself start December 1983 by Akira Toriyama, the series was published weekly and on a very tight schedule (14 pages per week, plus title page) for nearly eleven years, ending in May 1995. In total, 519 regular chapters and one bonus chapter were published. The anime series premiered in February 1986 on Fuji Television, running weekly and in prime time with new episodes every Wednesday night. In December of 1986, the first theatrical film version of the anime was produced. The anime series ended in April 1989 after 153 episodes (and Goku’s transition to adulthood). Although the animated series ended, fans did not have to wait long for the continuation of the story.

Dragon Ball Z

The sequel anime, Dragon Ball Z debuted the following week. In total, thirteen DBZ movies were produced. In May 1995, the long running Dragon Ball manga finally ended its run in Shonen Jump as creator Akira Toriyama had grown exhausted and his editors allowed him to end the series. Without additional issues of the manga to translate onto the small screen, DBZ ended in January 1996 after 291 episodes. Once again however, Japanese fans would not have to wait more than a week for the continuation of the story, in Dragon Ball GT.

Dragon Ball GT

During the production of DBZ in Japan, popularity for the franchise was at its peak. Ironically, despite tremendous success in Japan and tons of marketable goods, the series had yet to take off in the US.

The third and final Dragon Ball series quickly followed the completion of Dragon Ball Z in February. Unlike the two previous series, Dragon Ball GT was not based on the Dragon Ball manga by Akira Toriyama. Instead, it was completely new material.

From the beginning however, there were problems with the series. Dragon Ball fandom in Japan was waning. To help renew interest in the series and bring it back to its roots, a decision was made to return the series to the style of the original comedy Dragon Ball anime, rather than the more action-oriented Dragon Ball Z. This decision led to the reintroduction of several villains not present since the original series, a return to the “Dragon Ball quest”-style plot of that series, and even the mystical de-aging of Goku, back to roughly the age he was when the first series began. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this creative change did not improve ratings and the series focus was changed again after the completion of only sixteen episodes. The remaining episodes of the series returned to the more action-oriented style of the latter series. As a result of declining interest, the series had ended in November 1997 after only 64 episodes. There was no sequel the following week.

Unofficial pictures from a film set in Mexico

Manga - DB, Piccolo vs. Goku

On January 31, 2008, over 600 girl geeks and their male guests gathered at the Googleplex for the 1st Bay Area Girl Geek Dinner in the United States. Girl Geek Dinners have been held in London, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Brussels, Malaysia, and more. This Bay Area Girl Geek Dinner is the first of its kind in the U.S.

Katherine Barr, a partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures, moderated the diverse panel of women in tech discussing building credibility and reputation in technology and business — women such as Irene Au, Google’s Director of User Experience; Rashmi Sinha, CEO of SlideShare; Leah Culver, Co-Founder and Lead Developer of Pownce; and Sumaya Kazi, Sun Microsystem’s Social Media Manager and serial entrepreneur by age 25.

The panelists shared their experiences as women in technology, the struggle to gain respect in the tech industry, and the funny things they experienced in work and life. While the panel focused mostly on the panelists’ individual experiences, the audience asked for advice on how to survive as a woman in a male-dominated technical culture. Women asked such questions as, how do you dress for occasions, how do you deal with lack of respect in the office, and how do you have it all? — both children and an executive career, as in the case of Irene.

2008 Democratic Presidential Candidate, Barack Obama, needs to show his own democratic companions with the next six caucuses till 11th of March in Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wyoming, Mississippi - that he is the only Candidate.

The tight Democratic race (1202 to 1042 Delegates for Obama) is all over the news channels and the discussion that it can torn the Democrats apart. With 915 remeaning Democratic Delegates till the 45th Democratic National Convention in August and the chance to lead till the Convention with a minor gap - it is likely that the decision for the presidential nominee, who to send against McCain in November, will not be made-up on our math. Or what we can think of.

Could he deliver?

Barack Obama won all eight caucuses after Super Tuesday on Feb 5th, and amazed with such a landslide movement the whole press and its own supporters. Winning white states like Maine and the ‘Potomac primary’ - Washington, DC, Maryland and Virginia. Hillary Clinton had to lend her own campaign already $5m of her own cash and fired 2 people who run her campaign. I contrast the - the political phenomenon - Barack Obama who reached recently the mark of one million donations for his campaign (some say raising $1m a day).

Early this morning, we reached one million people owning a piece of this campaign.

Think about that for a minute.

One million people like you own a stake in a grassroots movement that is not just competing, but thriving, in a political process that’s been dominated by special interests for far too long.

You have given your time, energy, and passion to bring about change.

No other campaign has ever reached one million donors while still in a competitive primary, and I am grateful for your generosity.

This is an important milestone, not just for our campaign, but also for our party. This level of support will be invaluable as we head toward a general election in which grassroots participation will be more important than ever.

The next six days could decide whether we get that chance. It will take a massive effort across the country to Get Out The Vote on Tuesday, March 4th.

The Economist wrote last week that it is not just that he has managed to survive the Clintons’ crude onslaught with grace. He has persuaded huge numbers of people around the world to reconsider politics in an optimistic way. To many Americans, a black man who eschews both racial politics and the conservative-liberal divide is a chance to heal the country’s two deepest divisions. To many foreigners, he represents an idealistic version of America—the hope of a more benevolent superpower. Although Mr Obama’s slogan “Yes We Can” has been turned into a pop video, and his early campaign grassroots pay now off by adoption from thousand of supporters throughout every divide.

Debating to a draw suits Barack Obama

But against all odds - Barack holds his lead even in the latest Democratic debate live on Television. For Hillary Clinton it represented a final chance to unsettle Barack Obama ahead of the next round of primaries, and she failed.

Overall, however, Mr Obama came out of it better. He seemed calm, reasonable and at ease while Mrs Clinton seemed tense and combative, at one point complaining at being asked to reply to too many questions first. He seemed, in fact, more presidential. And besides, given his commanding position, a draw is all that Mr Obama needed. Mrs Clinton’s last ditch effort—a series of quite tough attacks on Mr Obama’s positions—failed to turn the tide of the game. Both candidates came out of the long debate well, but that was not enough for Mrs Clinton. Writes The Economist Internet edition.

Mini Super Tuesday could be decisive

Mrs Clinton needs now the two big states, Ohio and Texas (she has big poll majorities in both states), which are decisive for the future outcome of her Presidential Campaign (and political career) and the possible nomination in Denver. If Mrs Clinton were to win both Ohio and Texas, she would hardly be out of the woods. But not save till August.

Then there are still superdelegates and and the possible chance that it will be an open nomination. A Clinton victory would then still look wildly implausible, but not completely impossible. Maybe we see in just a week whether Mrs Clinton is a likable democratic nominee or a more dislikable. It’s possible.

After loosing the red line of the Quake series with Quake 4 and serious design mistakes, scaring off the veterans and old-school players, id Software orientates it Quake franchise towards current consumer habits - the web.

id Software and IGA together released last week much more than everybody expected about the in-stealth project Quake Live! (aka Quake Zero). Working together to bring us the next iteration of the classic Quake franchise. Uncovered in an interview during lasts’ Quakecon - Quake Live! will be web-browser based only Quake 3 orientated deathmatch/tournament game. With a full community experience (havn’t seen that since Facebook), including stat tracking (Minesweeper has the same feature), friends lists (I have ICQ since 1999, and my eMail address book is my Social graph), matchmaking (Blizzard hasn’t worked it out perfectly either), and sponsored tournaments (is e-sport already old-fashioned?), all within your standard web browser (what are the specs?).

Ok - but here is the serious part;

“IGA understands game developers and game players which makes them the perfect partner for QUAKE LIVE. Whether it’s been the ease of implementing their SDK or just their excitement about QUAKE LIVE, they have been fantastic to work with,” said Todd Hollenshead, CEO of id Software. “As we work to bring QUAKE-style deathmatch excitement to the masses, IGA has fully supported our vision.”

“id Software is among the proverbial godfathers of modern gaming and we are thrilled to be working with them on their first title in our ‘freemium’ category,” said Justin Townsend, CEO of IGA Worldwide. “This partnership is only the latest testament to the increasing acceptance of in-game as an effective, measurable advertising medium and a strategic revenue opportunity for publishers and developers.”

IGA predicts more progressive game publishers like id will create what the company has coined “freemium,” or free-to-play premium games based on their most popular titles in order to attract new audiences and open new revenue advertising revenue streams. A recent eMarketer forecast estimated the current video game advertising market to exceed $502MM and is expected to grow 23 percent year-over-year over the next five years.

The industry finally may understands that you can’t deliver and develop something like this new approach on your own - without sharing risks, debt, R&D, partnering up and collaborating with your IP.  Which goes beyond a relationship of Reven/id Software or Epic/*put a graphic studio her* or Publisher/Developer. I hope for the success of this spin-off, they will give the advantages to the community and not so much their own pockets. Not only because there is no publisher to sell something.

No word yet on when the game will officially launch. But there is a Beta sign-up.

Embedded real-time applications!

ABSTRACT

What Do We Do With 10^12 Transistors? The Case For Precision Timing;

It will be too costly to design many of these chips at the polygon
or even gate level, so they must be highly programmable. Furthermore,
they should not just be FPGAs as we now know them because with that
many transistors, we should specialize more for power efficiency. I
envision FPGA-like chips where the computational elements combine CPUs
with more traditional FPGA-like fabrics.

For embedded real-time applications, which I argue will dominate, I
argue that the temporal behavior of these processors should be as easy
to analyze and control as their functional behavior.

I present a vision such a precision-timed (PRET) processor, which
incorporates a variety of techniques. At the ISA level, it provides
cycle-accurate timers, a predictable memory hierarchy based on
scratchpad memories, and an interleaved pipeline that provides
predictable, hardware-efficient concurrency. It will be programmed in
a C-like language that includes user-specified timing constraints and
concurrency, perhaps with synchronous semantics. Both compile- and
run-time checks will ensure the program meets timing constraints,
similar to array bounds checking.