1: the quality or degree of being efficient.
2 a: efficient operation b (1): effective operation as measured by a comparison of production with cost (as in energy, time, and money) (2): the ratio of the useful energy delivered by a dynamic system to the energy supplied to it.

Generally speaking, the second definition, specifically b (1), is the one that makes the most sense for this purpose” an “effective operation as measured by a comparison of production with cost,” and in our case the cost would be Time.

Data Storage has always been measured in this fashion (with respect to energy, time and cost) and certainly for most normal applications, such as randomly accessing information, or perhaps optimizations for specific tasks, the existing technologies have been quite effective, however in Artificial Intelligence, or even just trying to access information in a contextually relevant manner, these current technologies are just not “good enough.” Indeed, even if our “index” for the information is organized in an efficient manner relative to the purpose (through the use of a database for instance), the information actually being stored on the physical media is not being store efficiently (this is mitigated in most modern databases by pre-allocating chunks of physical space on the media and making sure the blocks are de-fragmented). Nevertheless, this does not guarantee that the data being stored is physically located in the same place… in fact it is quite possible that the information, even though the files are not logically fragmented, are scattered across multiple physical disks. Therefore, even if our technology does a lot to make sure it is performing as well as it possibly can, there still are inefficiencies that exist.

When we begin to add the concept of contextually relevant information, most data storage systems require a lot of pre-preperation (often taking weeks of an architects time) to design and implement a data architecture in a database that has been configured correctly to achieve any sort of performance with respect to contextual information. Optimally, what we need are physical storage media that are “context-aware” in how they store the information.

Thesis: In order to achieve greater performance and a closer approximation on how the human brain stores, retrieves and categorizes contextual data, we must change how our hardware stores that information.

If we can build contextually aware hardware storage media, for instance, one that understands that two pieces of information are contextually relavant to one another, and can physically store them next to one another, and if we can devise a way to continuously store contextual information in such a manner, then we can eliminate much of the media lag time that exists when trying to retrieve that information.

The Human Brain spends much of its time remembering information. If the Brain had to retrieve information scattered from many different physical locations, the shear effort of assembling that information would mean it would take us minutes to form the simplest thought! Therefore, the Brain must store information that is relavant to a central concept in a physically relevant manner. The Brain also spends another portion of concious time tagging information that it sees during the concious hours and storing that information in short-term memory, then at night, when we are asleep, it attempts to sort that information against the currently “filed” contextual information stored in long-term memory, and then file it contextually and physically wherever it is relevant.

I believe that we must have a physical storage technology that mimicks this behavior if we are ever to have a storage capability that is useful in Artificial Intelligence research. Implement this method of storage with SCM storage media, and we truly will be one step closer to a technology that works for the contextually relevant constructs instead of against it.

The applications of such a technology would go far beyond advancing research into Artifical Intelligence (which may truly never be fully realized), for instance, search engines could utilize this technology to create very fast contextual query systems, or perhaps make content management not only a software-efficient endeavor but a hardware one as well, allowing for very fast searh and retrieval of archival media, and the list could go on… This technology would take less energy, reducing the power cost relative to today’s data retrieval systems by orders of magnitude.

There are several papers that exist that are relevant to this subject¹²³⁴⁵, while all of these propose great software strategies for dealing with contextual data they all rely heavily on pre-existing physical media systems and try to solve the problem through software means alone (however, perhaps the best solution I have seen, and one that is a good mitigation for contextual data, is the one presented by the paper written by Gokul Soundararajan, et. al., which deals with the situation by implementing a contex-aware pre-fetch algorithm on the server… a novel idea, but one that adds yet another layer on top of the physical media (however this is useful for distributed data), and therefore another hit on performance relative to localized (non-distributed) data.

Hopefully in the near future, a truly context-aware physical storage media will be devised and implemented as I believe this is the only way we are going to achieve good performance for the kind of data we are amassing as a society, not forgetting the applications in many other areas.

1. See A Context Based Data Management System for Pervasive Computing Collaborative Applications, by Sharat Khungar and Jukka Riekki
2. See A Context Based Storage for Ubiquitous Computing Applications, by Sharat Khungar and Jukka Riekki
3. See A Context-based Document System for Wearable Computers, by Kent Lyons, Thad Starner, Lonnie Harvel
4. See A Classification Framework for Storage and Retrieval
   of Context, by B.I.J. Siljee, I.E. Bosloper, J.A.G. Nijhuis
5. See Context-Aware Prefetching at the Storage Server, by Gokul Soundararajan, Madalin Mihailescu, and Cristiana Amzahowever

My previous anger about being laid-off from my company was not directed at any particular individual, but merely at the situation and the congruence of events that led up to it, and that anger has cooled somewhat in hindsight. In fact, I’m very glad it did happen, since it gave me the opportunity to put myself into a higher mental gear, and take a hard look at what my life-goals are.

Over the past several years, my professional craving to be apart of the industrial development machine had driven me to snub advancement for advancement’s sake. In fact, I have been offered managerial positions several times in the past only to turn them down (or simply not pursue them) for fear that I would lose my connection with the real technical community. Throughout my career, I have met older technical “sages” in the community and I thought, “I want to be like them!” My thinking at the time was that these “sages” have successfully managed to avoid being corrupted by the corporate ladder, and had somehow retained their “coolness.”

Today, I believe my professional priorities have changed. I am still considered by all that know me as being technically savvy and definitely more than capable of doing the technical aspects of my job, however I’m starting to really gain greater satisfaction about helping and leading younger technical professionals down their career paths. I’m not certain if this is merely an aspect of getting older, but if so, then I’m OK with it, and I find I want to continue to do this. Being a leader and a mentor is daunting since you want to give the “right” advice, and help these younger versions of yourself to achieve where you have failed in the past; perhaps I have begun a new path of my life that I am only now realizing that I’m already walking down, and it has begun to make me think that becoming a manager is not out of the question. I know one thing, I do not want to lose my technical ability, but I really think the challenge of balancing that with team leadership and mentoring is a worthy one… who knows where it may lead?

Nevertheless, I don’t ever want to be in the position of not being of value to those around me, nor to the company I work for… even though I disagree with the foolish and wasteful practices of large companies that lead them to lay-offs when those pink-slips could have been avoided if only there were smarter people at the helm… I can only be myself and affect those around me, and to whom I am responsible, in the most positive way I know how — anything else is out of my control. I must live life from moment to moment and enjoy every aspect of it while I can, whether it’s a moment from my profession or one from my personal life, these moments will never come again!

What I can tell you is that I live in one of the largest cities in the United States, I work as a Master Certified IT Architect for a very, very, very large computer/software company. Additionally, I focus on building large computing infrastructures for the world, wide public sector, mainly related to defense. I’m not that really interested in talking about defense, even though I might from time to time.

So, without giving away who I am, I think I’ve given enough for the purposes of this blog.

To be honest, I was OK with being laid off, as I had worked my self into thinking that it was an opportunity for me to do something different (perhaps move out west and see what might happen), but the Fates have a sense of humor I suppose. This whole experience did open my eyes as to just how much a cog-in-the-machine I am currently … I mean I think I have a great set of skills, but when it is cheaper for a company ship my skills overseas and hire ten people for what it costs to pay me, no matter how good I am at what I do, the company, as impersonal as it is, will opt for the cheapest route.

I think that many companies are starting to realize that their “cheaper” solution is not necessarily the “better” solution for their customers. In my case, my customers and colleges demanded that I return and worked to make that happen, however I think to myself, why do I wish to work for a company that doesn’t really care about me, my situation, my family, and what laying off does to everyone associated with me. Nevertheless, I am back, and the prudent thing for me to do is weather this economic storm and when things get better, I may look for better options. My current situation has left a rather a bad taste in my mouth. I remember having a conversation with my previous manager, and we both agreed that this type of thing will ultimately cost the company more money in the long run, and reduce quality and skills. Sometimes the decisions people make, even if they think it is for good business reasons, isn’t really the “right” thing to do.

Every time I think about this, I remember a great book I read about fifteen years ago or so named, “The Customer Comes Second,” by Hal Rosenbulth. This book I think every chief executive needs to read since it outlines an attitude toward corporate culture that centers around the employee and not the customer. The interesting thing is that the end result is a much higher customer satisfaction rate than what tends to happen in a “services” or customer centric corporate culture. The customer centric culture tends not to value the employee, since the customer is more important.

Anyway, my anger is muted lately, as I am thankful that I have a job, and friends that value me enough to help me keep it. However, if I ever start my own company, I hope I can value my employees enough to find ways to keep them in a harsh economic climate, even if it means taking a pay-cut and having all my executives do the same…

Memory read/write speeds along with data transfer rates on USB devices have continued to improve over the years until it has become possible to store full-length movies on the memory stick and actually play them directly from the device.

The iPod Touch and iPhone use flash technologies to replace miniaturized hard drives thus reducing power consumption. In general, an iPod Touch is a very sophisticated memory stick capable (currently) of storing 32 gigabytes of movies, pictures, applications not to mention the operating system the device uses to function.

Truly, flash memory technologies are reaching remarkable densities and performance levels. However this is merely the beginning of the trend.

In the July/September issue of the IBM Journal of Research and Development, several research papers were published discussing a class of memory technologies called Storage Class Memory or (SCM)¹. The development of SCM technologies is an effort by companies like IBM to completely replace the hard disk drive by the year 2020. While, there are many challenges to overcome, mainly related to device longevity, the papers were very optimistic at the prospects of overcoming them. I believe that by 2010 we will start to see the first SCM devices appear which will most likely be used to replace flash technologies in the 1-40 gigabyte ranges. However, by 2015 we should start to see 50-150 gigabyte SCM devices start to appear and the first of the laptops making use of them.

Essentially, when we can finally utilize SCM devices in traditional computers such as laptops, desktops and servers, we will have finally broken away from the largest bottleneck to computing performance that currently exists: the Hard Drive. We will finally realize the first “Instant-On” computers and perceived application performance will skyrocket without any other changes to the computing architectures.

At the same time, as SCM devices start to mature, you will start to see SCM Memory Sticks with capacities of 30 to 50 gigabytes and mean-time-before-failure rates in the tens of years. It is quite possible that by 2020 we could see 1+ Terabyte laptop computers and 500 gigabyte memory sticks (can you imagine a 500+ gigabyte iPod?).

About fifteen years ago, I was fascinated by a Sci-Fi television show called Babylon 5, and while there were many futuristic technologies that seemed to be ubiquitous, none more so then the Memory Crystal (for lack of a better term). These things seemed to have the ability to store vast quantities of data and have the ability to access any portion of it almost instantaneously. I believe we are on the road toward making this technology a reality. While “Blue-Ray” DVD’s are the first truly cheap digital recording medium capable of storing a full-length high-definition movie without compression, I believe that by 2015 some entrepreneurial inventor will marry USB 3.0, SCM and some hardware security technologies make SCM Memory Sticks a reality. This literally could be the end of mechanical recording devices like CD’s or DVD’s as literally you could rent several HD movies by paying a small fee for the use of a special memory stick at the movie rental store (which has proprietary security hardwired to prevent copying or tampering², and also a timer to render the stick inert when the rental time runs out). Imagine taking your rental stick to the movie rental kiosk, plug it in, choose 3 or so movies to rent, pay the kiosk and have them downloaded to your memory stick. At home, you could literally have the playback device be built into your television, or it could be a small HDMI connected play-box device that you insert your stick into.

To be honest, the previous example may not be the best one, considering that greater numbers of people are choosing to download their videos over the Internet or rent them “On Demand” through their cable company, but I think you get the idea.

Regardless, I find a world where there are no more CD’s, DVD’s, or floppy disks (do we even use those anymore?), a fantastic one. Wouldn’t it be great if the future could let us store the universe on a stick?

1. See Storage-class memory: The next storage system technology by R. F. Freitas and W. W. Wilcke
2. For example the IronKey has similar security features.

As an avid gamer myself, I have had quite a bit of exposure to the concept of Guilds. Guilds is a generic term that defines a virtual social network of individuals that come together to enhance the social aspects of the virtual world they are in. Just about every virtual world I have had exposure to has this concept built-in. In fact, the concept of Guilds has been a part of online gaming since the beginning. I can speak from first-hand experience of leading and participating in guilds during the time back in the mid 90’s when I played Meridian 59 rather extensively.

Guilds were something of a necessity since early games like M59 were Player-vs-Player only and the easiest way to survive and advance was to join a social organization so that you could watch each others backs. However, over time, as the concept of Player vs. Environment (PvE) became just as important as PvP game play, Guilds started executing Raids on in-game entities that normally were never supposed to be challenged as a way to enhance their gaming experience. Developers caught on quickly and started adding “Raid” content to challenge the more organized Guilds.

Today, Raiding is often accepted as the next challenge tier after achieving the highest level in the game. Unfortunately many game developers lose sight of the fact that often it is very difficult to bring together enough people to experience the end-game content, and many games therefore lack content that the casual player has access to.

Aside from Guilds being a means to an end with respect to MMOG’s, Guilds often display very interesting social dynamics, depending on their goals and the make up of their population. In a way, the longevity of a Guild in a Virtual World is often a point of pride to gamers, and boasting that a particular Guild that you happen to belong to has survived so many months or years is often seen as another facet of the game itself.

In the article, “The Life and Death of Online Gaming Communities: A Look at Guilds in World of Warcraft,” the authors take a very interesting look at how these social organizations are structured, why they survive or fail, and what kind of guilds are successful. If your interested in reading about it, you can
skip most of the scientific jargon and jump right to the meat of the
discussion which starts around page 7 (or page 845 if you use the
numbering at the bottom of the page).

In my experience, the best Guilds are the casual raiding guilds, but these guilds are also the hardest to maintain. The membership must be of like-mind, and generally tends to be older (often between the ages of 25-40), and this very characteristic derives from the fact that individuals at that age tend to have less free-time on their hands, but also there is a desire to do more in a shorter period of time when events do occur.

On the other hand, according to the article above, the more successful guilds tend to be the hard-core raiding guilds since they tend to be a small number of players that are all very focused on one thing: Raiding. These Guilds really could care less about any other kind of content, and they tend to be very good at functioning as a team. The organization of such Guilds are also very militaristic, and this serves them well by allowing the members to focus on their specializations and performing the strategies set out by the chain-of-command. In this fashion, they are able to achieve their goals quickly and with a sense of satisfaction.

It would be very interesting if a follow-up article were done to discern some real demographics about the people behind the avatars, but I doubt this would be possible.

Guilds are interesting, and if you’ve participated in Virtual Worlds at all (let alone MMOG’s) then you would probably find the research article amusing and perhaps even fascinating. If you haven’t had the opportunity to particpate first-hand, the article is still interesting from a psychological perspective as I’m sure it says something about the human condition and how we would interact if human physical contact is factored out.