A Word and an Aphorism: Ubiquity

While reading a white paper regarding the Microsoft operating system Windows, I ran accross a word I needed to look up. As it turns out, the word describes Windows well, and is a good word to use casually in conversation to make people scratch their heads:

Ubiquitous [adj.] existing everywhere; inescapable.
(The New American Webster Handy College Dictionary, 3rd ed.)

That got me wondering what I may find in my Geary's Guide to the World's Greatest Aphorists. Ubiquity, as luck would have it, was indexed to Seneca's thought:

"To be everywhere is to be nowhere." -Seneca (4 B.C. -65 A.D.) [via James Geary]

I am reading up on PC and server virtualization. I started by doing research for a case study due tomorrow night in an MBA class. However, PC virtualization is something I have been thinking about for several weeks as a means to branch out as an entreprenuer. Alternatively, it is a means by which my company could provide much more value to our clients. Unfortunately, it may be easier for me to start my own business and build it to profitability than it would be to convince my company to implement a good idea.

To put it in a nutshell, Virtualization in this case means that you do not have to buy a PC for every single person that needs one. You could buy a smaller, low-cost appliance, which would use the internet to act like a PC. Not only would you not lose anything in the process, you could gain so much in value, security, administration, application, and performance.

The white paper used the word ubiquitous to describe the current state of affairs in computing. If you wish to change anything about how people and businesses use computers, you have to deal with the fact that we expect Windows to be everywhere. If you want to make it cheaper through virtualization, you will have to virtualize the Windows environment because consumers will not adopt anything else.

I am glad I thought of looking up ubiquity in the Geary Aphorism Guide. Seneca's wisdom actually applies here in a big way: To be everywhere is to be nowhere. I think that could be a vision of the future: your computer today is a specific, tangible device that you can point to, open up, move with you , whether it is a desktop, a laptop, or a PDA. You may have two or three computers, each with their own data, purpose, look, software, etcetera. So, when you say your work PC is on your desk in your office, you are saying your PC is somewhere.

Through virtualization, there may be a day when you have an appliance at home, a laptop, a PDA-Cellphone, and an appliance at work. All three may access the exact same virtual PC that looks the same, has the same software and data, and can do the same things. In fact, it is the same, no matter what appliance you use to access it. The PC that you access exists on a server "somewhere", but you can access it from anywhere. In fact, you can access it from everywhere, thanks to wireless technologies. Therefore, as long as you have an appliance and internet access, you have your PC.

With PC virtualization, your PC is everywhere. However, you can never get your hands on where your PC's data physically resides. The server that holds your data would be a trusted source, of course, and great steps would be taken to ensure privacy and security. However, the server that you access to use the appliance may be anywhere in the world, or two places at once. Therefore, the server is somewhere, but you don't know where. Your PC is available everywhere, but if I asked you where it was, you could say it was nowhere.

Update, Blog, Book

I am up to my eyeballs here. My job is maxing out my day, and school is maxing out my night. I am working on my MBA, and adding a concentration in Information Technology; hence, I am taking two accelerated graduate courses right now, both of which have to cram an entire semester into 6 weeks. I have to read several hundred pages a week and write upto to twenty pages or so, not to mention research, write presentations, and try to ponder the lessons. Amazingly, I think I am actually absorbing most of the material. Ask me again in six weeks though.

I am not complaining or bragging, I am just explaining why I can't write regularly on this blog. I am taking a small break from graduate studies through April and May, but that is only because I have projects at work scheduled that take me out of town or late into the night.

As I have stated in the past, I do not want this to be a "me too" blog that says nothing and simply wastes electrons. Even if I am not a profound or skilled writier, I want to make it apparent that I am striving for excellence and this blog can serve as an example of better blogging--eventually. Since I have not achieved that end yet and will not in the near future, I wish to point to someone else's blog that does.

Guy Kawasaki has a cool name. Anyone with a cool name can get my endorsement, unless they abuse children or are fans of the St. Louis Cardinals. Guy Kawasaki is more than a cool name, he is a great blogger. He is original, inspirational, and full of positive energy. I am reading his archive right now and loving every minute of it. The title says it all: How to Change the World.

Finally, the greatest book ever: I love to read and have an extensive library. I would be considered "well-read" by most people, I think. However, over the last few years I have had little choice about what I read due to school and work. Therefore, when I read for fun it has to be short and sweet, and either richly entertaining (belly-laughter) or deeply profound. While browsing for a book that I will need at work, I accidentally ran into the world's greatest book.

[sound of screeching tires...] Allow me to digress for a quick second. Why is it that all of my favorite books were stumbled onto accidentally? You will remember recently that I was floored by the philosophies of The Secret and Thank You Power, both of which I stumbled onto accidentally. One of my favorite novels is The Confessions of Max Tivoli which I stumbled onto by accident at the library while looking for something by Hemingway. "Max Tivoli" was written by Andrew Sean Greer, and "G" is near "H", and the word "Confessions" lept out at me.

Come to think of it, I have no idea how I stumbled on Guy Kawasaki's blog and it has become my favorite thing to read online. The lesson I take away is that despite my best efforts, the best things in my life are accidents. What do I do with this lesson? I have no idea, but perhaps my wife and I should review our birth control method.

[gravel flys, and this short-bus is back on the road...] Anyhow, I accidentally discovered a great book. Then, I accidentally carried it to the register, accidentally dropped my debit card on the counter with my Borders Reward card, and was forced to take it home with me. The book is Geary's Guide To The World's Greatest Aphorists by James Geary. It is educational, biographical, deeply profound, and occasionally so funny that my laughter endangers the book.

If all you have time for is 30 seconds to read and ponder, you can pick up this book, flip to any page, and be assured to find a sentence or two that speaks to you. You can re-read a page many times and, as your mood and experience changes, you will find a different sentence pops out. Conversely, the same pithy quote may take on a different meaning each time you return to it. This is the book that keeps on giving.

Perhaps I will share a little nugget occasionally when I need to blog and don't have time to really dig in. Here are two aphorisms from the book that I like:

"The course of every intellectual, if he pursue his journey long and unflinchingly enough, ends in the obvious, from which the non-intellectuals have never stirred." -Alduos Huxley

"Laziness is just the habit of resting before you get tired" -Jules Renard

Unharvested

I am not a huge poetry fan, but there are a few poems and a few poets who I enjoy. Like most people, I have drawn inspiration from Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken". However, few people know how much inspiration and wisdom, as well as enjoyment, can be drawn from a compilation of his life's work. While flipping through a compilation edited by Edward Connery Lathern, I found a poem that I had previously ignored. I'd like to share it with you:

UNHARVESTED

A scent of ripeness from over a wall.
And come to leave the routine road
And look for what has made me stall,
There sure enough was an apple tree
That had eased itself of its summer load,
And of all but its trivial foliage free,
Now breathed as light as a lady’s fan.
For there had been an apple fall
As complete as the apple had given man.
The ground was one circle of solid red.

May something go always unharvested!
May much stay out of our stated plan,
Apples or something forgotten and left,
So smelling their sweetness would be no theft.

I like this poem mostly because Frost leaves its interpretation so open. This makes its usefullness almost limitless. I had several applications occur to me at once.

First, I have always been intrigued with Hemingway's idea about writing. He said he tried to write for a specified time each day and leave a little left unwritten. That would be like taking some apples from your tree and leaving some unharvested. When I write, I feel like I have to empty myself. If I leave something unwritten, I either lose the thought or lose the motivation; therefore, I write until I am void of feeling and ideas. Obviously, Hemingway knew more about writing than I did so I have always been intrigued by that idea of leaving something left in the tank. Frost's poem reminded me of that idea, and helps me ponder the value.

This poem also makes me think of the Old Testament concept of gleaning. Basically, my understanding is that as a farmer, you are to only make one pass over your fields for the harvest. Whatever is left after that first pass either belongs to the poor for their sustenance or will become part of the soil again. It was considered greedy and cruel to go through your crops and harvest every single grain or fruit. We now know that it is also a good agricultural practice to return more of your crops to the soil.

I am reminded of a friend's front yard when I was a teen. There were three apple trees, but only two residents. After eating all the raw apples that they could, making apple pie and apple sauce, and giving away shopping bags full to everyone they could, the trees would still make a ring of red. As fall wore on, the rotting apples would give off a pleasant odor. A week later, that front yard would smell like feet--apple cider vinegar anyone? That is when we would pick up the apples and, being teenagers, throw them at eachother. Then we would stink like vinegar and laugh like idiots. Maybe I looked forward to that week every year? At this point in my life, I would break the arm of anyone chucking rotting apples at me, but back then I guess I was more tolerant of stupidity.

I wondered what other people had thought about this poem so I Googled it and found another interpretation that I agree with. On her blog, Loren Webster mentions the fact that we humans are terrible at controlling nature. I agree; we have much better results when we leave ecosystems alone rather than trying to control or improve them. Perhaps Loren's last sentence catches the essence of Frosts meaning best, "Still, left alone, nature can usually heal even man’s worst insults, given enough time."

Chicago Girls

My maternal grandmother was a teenager during World War II, living in an Irish neighborhood in Chicago. Her brother was in the Army, stationed in England and made the D-day landing at Normandy. My grandma later married a former sailor who coincidentally drove one of the landing boats on D-day.

When my grandfather and uncle realized they were at the same place on the same day during the war, my uncle remarked, "You were one of the bastards who kept taking us to that damn beach!" I don't know if he knew then that my grandfather carried shrapnel in his leg from that day till the day he died.

My uncle was stationed with a geologically diverse group of men (this was, of course, before the racial integration of the armed forces.) Many of the guys around him thought that everyone in Chicago was a gangster, since Al Capone and the St. Valentine's Day Massacre was still fresh in everyone's memory. My uncle was at first baffled by such stereotype. He then decided to have a little fun.

Below is a photo that he wrote home and asked to have staged. My grandma is on the left with dark hair. I forgot where she said she got the revolvers from, but I assure you that it was rare for for my grandma to have a gun in the same house. The whiskey was her father's; she never was a drinker and didn't like to be around "hard liquor". It appears that they may be playing Stud Poker, but I know she was more of a Pinnocle player.

Once this photo arrived, my uncle was able to convince every gullible hick in his unit that girls in Chicago were not to be messed with. I wonder how many men were influenced by this photo and believed their whole life that Chicago women were heat-packing, whiskey-drinking, poker-playing thugs. Perhaps one of these guys met a woman later who admitted that she was from Chicago, and a hysterical (or sad) reaction occured.