• We Choose the Moon
• Twitter
  • Command Module
  • Eagle
  • Capcom

• The lectures in question are truly classic
• The technology behind the video streaming service is impressive

Even if you don't care about physics, you need to link over to Project Tuva. Make certain you start up at least one lecture, and enjoy! My thanks to the eScience at Microsoft for making me aware of this initiative. This content will be added to the Engineering Learning Wiki and its Google custom search engine within the next few minutes. I've attached two screenshots below ... click to expand and view full sized. The images doesn't do justice to the experience.

• Friday, July 10th: I learn about Confluence 3.0 and it's micro blogging feature
• Monday, July 13 @ 6:30 am: I review my schedule and decide to conduct a software review
• Monday, July 13 @ 6:45 am: After a few Google searches I discover the Confluence Sandbox. This software environment is "full use" and allows any user to just start using it (i.e. I did not need to process through 1,000,000 screens trying to gain access rights while being required to give Atlassian tons of private information)
• Monday, July 13 @ 6:50 am: I issue an invite via an internal communication tool and Twitter for folks to join me in an online evaluation. I make certain folks just post innocuous "hello world" comments, etc.
  
  • 7:25 am: My Tweet
  • 8:19 am: Don Smith ... General Mills Web 2.0 Guru does a RT
  • My test of Confluence 3.0
  • My Confluence Sandbox profile
  • 9:49 am: Demo ends ... send tweet to Atlassian about status update responses
  • 10:14 am: Atlassian engineer in Amsterdam responds with an update

Okay ... this was an amazing process. In the past, I would have had to meet with some marketing folks from a given company who would force me to sit through a presentation, and then hopefully I would gain access rights within a few days to conduct an evaluation. Coordination of schedules would have pushed such a meeting way off into the future. My next step would have been to coordinate a demo with folks from my company ... another scheduling nightmare. This process took less than four hours and I even involved individuals from other companies in my test. This fact is most unusual if you to stop to consider it; my software test involved people from companies other than my own! Finally, at the end of our test I sent out a message to Atlassian via Twitter, and although I did not know any of their engineers, I had my response in under 30 minutes.

Thus, here is how to market software products in the world of Web 2.0:

• Give you customers full access to a complete working version of your product
• Don't require tons of personal data to obtain Sandbox access
• Have your team monitor social media to follow your customers efforts

Atlassian's Sandbox was configured in some other important ways which made me willing to try their software:

1. Their system did not allow robots (i.e. is not indexed by search engines)
2. I was forced to prove I was human for all posts (captcha)
3. The system took email references and turned them into "non links".

While I'm disappointed that Confluence 3.0 does not have true micro-blogging, I am very impressed with how the process worked. Atlassian is to be commended. The end result is I am now following four Atlassian employees on Twitter (my Northstar Nerd tweets) and watching their product for the dot releases. Help me in this cause by voting for the addition of responses to one's status updates, which would allow for true conversations and threads.

We need this kind of inspiring science to attract a new generation of young scientists. In the short term, rather than these heavy thoughts, I will relive that first moon flight (Apollo 11) ... and you can too starting this Thursday. Link to:

• We Choose the Moon
• NASA: Apollo 11

Definitely visit the "We Choose the Moon" web site ... it's big time cool. Click upon the image to view a copy of the root page full sized.

With that preamble, it's worth taking a look at Chris Anderson's new eBook which is titled "Free"! He is earlier book was "The Long Tail". Chris practices what he preaches; his book Free is available for Free! My thanks to iLibrarian who made me aware of this resource.

FREE (full book) by Chris Anderson

• NetApp Founder Traces Path from Lab to Boardroom

I'll add this to the engineering learning wiki and Google custom search engine.

• Brett Favre
  • Sport: American Football
  • Age: 39
  • Status: retired (?) for the nth time
  • Rumor: will be the next Minnesota Vikings quarterback
  • Injury Status: torn muscle in arm ... recent surgery
  • Recent Athletic Achievement: NY Jets?!
    .
• Lance Armstrong
  • Sport: Cycling
  • Age: 37
  • Status: was retired ... back in the Tour de France
  • Rumor: doping (?)
  • Injury Status: recovering from broken collarbone
  • Recent Athletic Achievement: NY Marathon
    .
• Rich Hoeg
  • Sports: Marathons, Cross-Country Skiing, Cycling
  • Age: 53
  • Status: now retired from marathons
  • Rumor: Nerd who thinks he is an athelete
  • Injury Status: recovering from cross-country ski injury's
    • Broken thumb and torn ligament
    • Cracked rib
    • Hematoma
  • Recent Athletic Achievement: Rice River Ramble

Okay folks ... back from vacation ... thus I need to get serious with my posts! This is what happens when I go off the grid for nine days! The big question ... should I stay retired? or be like my buddies Brett and Lance? (click upon any any image to view at full size)

Rice River Ramble on PhotoPeach

Hopes and dreams matter...

Personal dreams must be taken more seriously, especially during a recession.  Demos travelled the country asking people about their lives and what they wished for in the future. Far from a 'broken society' we found an optimistic, realistic and altruistic Britain.

In addition, you'll find a report on the state of education in the United Kingdom ... The Edgeless University. The full report may be downloaded from this link. Here is a very brief overview, which could really be about almost any service affected by technology. Do you fear it, or embrace change? Time for my first glass of wine!

• NASA Collaboration Study: Executive Summary | Full Report

You may also wish to see my prior post on Collaboration in the Cloud.

Being curious about yesterday's race, I queried Google on "Grandma's Marathon". Almost 100% of the first 20 results (farther down that most people would ever read) are traditional news media reports of the race. However, if one runs the same query via Twitter Search, the results are dramatically different, you learn what it's like to actually run in the race. The first tweet was by Graeme Thickins, a web 2.0 reporter who actually linked my video.

Thus, always know your audience and your purpose. One needs to stay abreast of both the traditional and conversational web. You'll be better able to understand the parts to the puzzle.

(Follow this link for a higher res version of my video. Most photos were taken by my family, but some are from the Minneapolis Star Tribune and Duluth News Tribune).

Paraphrased from the Duluth News Tribune:

The medical director, Steve Harrington, almost shut down the race down while it was in progress: "Race protocol calls for the medical director to confer with executive director Scott Keenan on matters of an unsafe race. They discussed the option of stopping the marathon and having runners brought in off the course by bus, and Harrington said it very nearly happened."

There were 577 runners treated at the finish-line medical tent. Most were treated for hyponatremia (low sodium) and hyperthermia (heat stroke), with one runner showing a temperature of 108 degrees.

Gold Cross Ambulance had 83 calls with 53 transports, including 36 to Duluth hospitals, the most in Harrington’s time with the marathon.

Black Flag Marathon on PhotoPeach