A senior astronomer has said that the hunt for alien life should take into account alien “sentient machines”.

via BBC News – Alien hunters ‘should look for artificial intelligence’.

Coincidentally, just last week at work I quoted Terry Bisson’s 1990 short story: “They’re Made Out Of Meat“.

It’s very short and starts like this:

“They’re made out of meat.”

“Meat?”

“Meat. They’re made out of meat.”

“Meat?”

“There’s no doubt about it. We picked up several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, and probed them all the way through. They’re completely meat.”

“That’s impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars?”

“They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don’t come from them. The signals come from machines.”

“So who made the machines? That’s who we want to contact.”

Read the whole thing, it’s great.

“Thinking meat! You’re asking me to believe in thinking meat!”

This is fantastic.

As for how to write well, here’s the short version: Write a bad version 1 as fast as you can; rewrite it over and over; cut out everything unnecessary; write in a conversational tone; develop a nose for bad writing, so you can see and fix it in yours; imitate writers you like; if you can’t get started, tell someone what you plan to write about, then write down what you said; expect 80% of the ideas in an essay to happen after you start writing it, and 50% of those you start with to be wrong; be confident enough to cut; have friends you trust read your stuff and tell you which bits are confusing or drag; don’t (always) make detailed outlines; mull ideas over for a few days before writing; carry a small notebook or scrap paper with you; start writing when you think of the first sentence; …

Keep reading, it gets even better: Writing, Briefly.

Product and services documentation is now a core business asset that can drive revenues.

If your business hasn’t been paying attention to your documentation, you’re ignoring a sales tool and a revenue generator and you need to rethink your priorities.

Forbes just published an article I wrote on the importance of product and services documentation in driving top-line revenue, decreasing support costs and increasing customer satisfaction. It’s a good read regardless of your discipline. Let me know what you think.

That was a fun night. 🙂

Today I was flattered by an interview at OpenSource.com the Red Hat community news site.

One misguided fellow made the following comment about MindTouch:

That thing is not open source at all. On their site it says: “Software License: Shared Source”. As far as I know, that is code name for Microsoft quasi-open source licenses which are in conflict with section 6 (and some with 10 also) of open source definition.

What else to expect from ex-Microsofties…. openwashing.

I tried posting a comment, but Mollum is configured to disallow comments that trip it’s spam filter and I couldn’t.

So, here’s the response I was trying to post in reply to the above comment titled “Openwashing”.

Open washing? 🙂

MindTouch Core is released under GPL v2 but some components (MindTouch Dream) are released under Apache. Download here (Core is GPL2 and free). I write about Open Core here, which links to several other posts on the topic.

The gist is, you can think of MindTouch Core as an up-stack app server that is specialized in collaboration. MindTouch 2009/2010 is a commercial product built atop MindTouch Core. MindTouch 2009/2010 is designed to be the killer app for strategic (product and service) documentation.

I’m confident most, if not all readers, readers at OpenSource.com have used MindTouch before. For example, the Mozilla Developer Network is powered by MindTouch. There are many other documentation bases that are powered by MindTouch including those for Zmanda, Fonality, RightScale, Intel, Microsoft, Intuit, ExactTarget, AutoDesk, EMC and many others.

Anyway, GPL v2 and Apache…not open washing. 🙂

Perhaps someone at OpenSource.com can help me post this comment.

March, 7 was the San Diego Gran Fondo. They advertise: “it’s a ride, not a race”. Meaning, the roads are not cleared and you’re expected to obey traffic laws. I cycled the 53 mile route.

Click on map for interactive version

The weather was horrible. I arrived at the starting line a little after 6 AM expecting the Fondo to start at 7 AM as was posted. Rather the start wasn’t until 7:25 AM at which time groups of 200 were released to start. I didn’t get started until about 30 minutes later.

The conditions were awful. I was soaked through before I crossed the starting line. My toes, ears and fingers were numb ten miles in. This made changing my flat at mile 19 challenging. I gave up on changing it myself after I broke my tool for stripping the rubber off the rim. Thankfully, I managed to hitch a ride from a surfer back to the aid station a mile back and had it fixed at the Colnago sponsored support station. It seemed every mile there was, at least, one cyclist with a flat. Perhaps this is typical, but the Fondo being my first organized ride I’m not sure if this is more or less than usual.

The best part of the ride was through Otay Ranch where clouds packed the peaks of the Otay preserve. It was gorgeous. Shortly after Otay I somehow managed to detour off course. It took me ten miles to weave my way through traffic in old Chula Vista and National City to get back on course. In the end my detour added five miles to my ride and I cycled 58 miles in 3 hours and 35 minutes.

The Gran Fondo was very well organized. The aid stations were stocked with helpful support persons who braved the elements alongside those of us cycling with a smile. My only complaint: mark the course with more signs. The only signs I saw were at turns and often there was only one small sign. The organizers should mark the course intermittently with signs (not only at turns) and when there is a turn there really should be a few signs to mark the turn. I am certain I wasn’t the only person who veered off course as I heard several others complaining about how poorly marked it was.

All in all, the Grand Fondo was great fun, even with the horrible weather. Sign On San Diego has a write up about the event. I am considering the Sea Otter Classic Gran Fondo in Monterrey next month, but I’m not certain my work schedule will permit this.

We moved to new offices last weekend. Our last intergalactic HQ was woefully small for how large we’ve grown.

Previous MindTouch HQ at 555 West Beech St. San Diego 92103

In our last offices we did everything ourselves: networking, wiring, PBX (Trixbox) etc… It really showed.

This is Sarah’s desk. Throughout the office cables
hung from the ceiling

In the “Fishbowl”, a conference room, we had a NAS device whirring so loudly you have to shout to be heard.

We had so many people packed into the 5th floor (main) office that for lack of space I was sharing a conference room with Mark as an office. We turned a storage closet into a conference room, hence the name “the closet”. And Roy was holding conference calls in the reception area daily. Worst of all, I’m a little embarrassed to report that we’ve had so many bodies packed into such a small place the place smelled a little funky. Or maybe is was our old fridge that stunk regardless of how much we cleaned it.

Engineering had more space than any other department;
so, the above photo is not indicative of the tight confines.

Yesterday, Monday February 1, MindTouch moved to a new space, two block away from our last, in Columbia Center. It’s twice the size of our previous offices. To commemorate the occasion the sales and engineering team wore suits. I had meetings in San Mateo and missed the affair, but Roy shot some photos and posted them at his blog.

Maxim Mass and Roy Kim discussing pork futures.

Tim O’Brien undoubtedly closing a new customer. 

The new office is located across the street from the W Hotel and is half a block from Carl Strauss. We’ll be hosting an office warming party in the near future. I’m looking forward to entertaining on our amazing patio.

Photo of the MindTouch offices taken from the patio. Above are the conference and training rooms.

Last year I was in a nasty cycling accident. Scans of my brain uncovered a benign tumor. Well, more precisely a colloid cyst, which I named Lil Craig. I had new scans taken last month. Good news and bad news. First, the bad. Lil Craig is no longer with us. RIP. Our time together was so short. Good news is, of course, I no longer have a growth in my melon.

I requested copies of both the original and recent brain CT scans. Scripps denied my request. Then I asked again, this time even more nicely. They agreed.

The before photos:

and the after photos:

I don’t see Lil Craig in either set! Do you? I thought these would be pretty exciting, but I was disappointed. I will tell what is way more exciting than I expected. The CT Scan of my torso.

Now that is awesome.