I went to visit Doron Sherman's new startup, uAppoint, today.  I first met Doron at NetDynamics, a company he co-founded many years ago and sold to Sun.  Doron's last startup, Collaxa, was bought by Oracle back in June and here he was doing another startup instead of kicking back for a while in France or something.

When I got there, a building next to Palo Alto Airport where SEF (Software Entrepreneur's Forum) used to meet, I ran into Nanda Kishore who used to be VP of Engineering at NetDynamics.  I found out that he founded IM2 and his office was in the same building.

When I finally got to uAppoint's office, Doron told me that Ofer Ben-Shachar, another co-founder of NetDynamics, has an office for his latest startup (Topixis?) right next door.  I haven't seen Ofer in a long time but he was in Israel.  Too bad.  The joyful sound of heated arguments Ofer and I had while at NetDynamics still rings my ears.  Ears for Years, I guess.

So today turned out to be a NetDynamics reunion day of sort.  It seems that ex-NetDynamics guys are breeding like jack rabbits in the Silicon Valley.  Aside from Doron and Ofer, Zack Rinat is busy at Model N with Steve Zocci and Peter Yared started ActiveGrid with funding from Jean-Louis Gassée and Hummer Winblad.

I stopped by at my client's office on the way back and mentioned to a collegue about my NetDynamics Day to a collegue who mentioned that he knew Ofer in response.  Silicon Valley is a really really small world.

Looks like San Jose policemen are having problem with the UI of their new in-vehicle Windows-based computer.  Although I haven't looked at the details of their trouble, I think most of the UI problems they listed can be solved by adding a stick-shift input device for selecting common tasks so that they won't have to push too many buttons or the touchscreen.

Beside being effective, the sound and the feel of the stick-shift is a pleasure to use as every sports car and truck drivers know.  Screaming clutch sound effect should be optional of course.

While herding dogs may steer herds, the reality of herd behavior in human society is that it's near impossible to steer a herd of people.  While people can be individually smart, once a group of them start moving in a direction, it turns into a train.  Leaders of a group in motion can change only the speed of which the group moves.  Even worse, they will find it difficult to even get off the train.

Dorothy can't just stop in the middle of the yellow brick road and say 'Let's go back.'  You have to be either insanely courageous or stupid to be able to do that.  It's only after the trainwreck that one gets a chance to regret or wish otherwise.  It's kind of sad, but true.

In this sense, I am being unrealistic too when I say it's not too late to turn it back.  While we are all engineers, we are also human with emotions that binds us.  But then I believe that wastes, mistakes, and inefficiencies are part of what makes the world go around.  Otherwise, there wouldn't be any problems for our solutions.

I have visited many museums and art galleries but I am rarely moved by looking at old things and pieces of art I can barely understand.  I wish there was a place where I can go to enjoy the experience of just being somewhere else: an experience gallery.

An experience gallery is divided into several rooms.  Walking into each room, one can see, hear, and smell some far off places on earth or even completely imaginary landscape projected onto one or more walls.  Rooms are related around a single theme which could be location or something more abstract like emotions.

Imagine walking into a room to find yourself standing at a Japanese Zen garden or ten feet away from a stream of molten lava.  You can enjoy the gentle blow of wind accompanying the harmy of the garden or smell the surfur in the air above the lava.  How about walking into a broken down house in India to become part of a poor Indian family along with all the foul smell and despair you can take in.  Perhaps you will see something that will make your life more bearable.  Can a 5,000 year-old pottery or Mona Lisa smile do that?

The cost of putting on experience exhibition can be subsidized by foreign countries looking to increase tourist to their countries.  Experiencing the place will be far more compelling than brochures.

Update:

I think the same can be done in the street too.  Imagine walking into a tunnel, at a subway perhaps, and finding yourself in Fallujah with bombs falling and bullets flying.  You don't need a reporter telling you what is going on.  Just being there is enough.

Research report mentioned in this Wired article will means we'll soon be seeing kids wearing odd devices while studying, taking exams, or fresh college grads going to job interviews.  It's not when but where, Asian countries like South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan where parents will do almost anything for their kids.

20% improvement in verbal skills?  I am tempted to try this myself.  Maybe applying a stun gun to my forehead just before a speaking engagement will help me give an electrifying speech.  Zap!  Ouch.

We went out to see The Incredibles tonight and all of us enjoyed it very much.  The Incredibles is very well made, best so far from Pixar, and is a true family movie with something for everyone, moms and dads as well as kids.  My wife and son liked Dash, the son in the movie, the most while I thought the neighborhood kid on a tricyle was the best character in the movie.

I highly recommend it.

During the Mobile Blogging session at BloggerCon, I got frustrated listening to people enumerate use cases for mobile blogging because they seemed to be obsessed about serving the needs of leisurely cellphone users who are more interested in having fun than worrying about tommorrow.

Other than greed, I can find little motivation to make the life of brats with six thumbs who go around taking photos just so they can keep in touch with friends.  For me, it's more rewarding to address think about use cases for the forgotten people: people who are struggling with life everyday, people who don't know how to use a computer let alone type, people whose lives might be improved with down to earth application of the latest technologies.

So I mentioned the handblogging idea I had posted about more than a year ago using a small hole-in-the-wall restaurant in France as an example.  Whether it's a small store owner in France or a grandmother selling fish off a cart in China, their customers are increasingly addicted to information at their finger tip yet they are ill prepared to provide their customer's need for information.  Their 'content' are typically valid for just hours or even minutes yet they don't have time to update homepages.

So handblogging comes to their rescue.  Original version of this idea was audio-oriented using telephones as the update device but I think cellphones equiped with a camera will be easier to use.

I'll be at Stanford all day to attend BloggerCon.  Pre-conference dinner last night at Ming's was fun although there weren't any cigars.  I hate lugging things around so I'll probably go to the conference with just my moleskine.

Update:

I skipped the last session, Fat Man Sings, and got home early because I didn't get much sleep last night.  This was my first BloggerCon and I enjoyed most of it.  I wanted to attend Julie's Emotional Blogging session but Larry Lessig's Law session was just too compelling.  In retrospect, I think I would have been better off at other sessions because while Larry's session was interesting, I had nothing in the end.

There was an ugly moment during the Scoble's session, Overload, when a vendor apparently talked about his product and Dave got up to put a stop to it.  Seemingly most of the participants in the room thought vendor participation would be all right and thought that they, the participants, should have the right to decide, overriding Dave's protest in the process.  They didn't realize that, while they thought it would be alright for that session, Dave was concerned about the wellbeing of the whole BloggerCon conference series.  Although his stance might seem harsh to some participants, I think he was right to not give in.

On the other hand, I think he could have handled the situation a little more diplomatically.  In the next BloggerCon, it might be a good idea to ask for volunteer Vendor Watchers instead of Dave having to wade into such delicate situations.

My thanks to Dave for organizing the conference and Stanford Law School for letting us invade their space for a day.  I sure hope Dave does it again in the west coast soon, ideally once a year.