Business Friends

If you're in my line of work you deal with a lot of people at geographically disparate locations and on the phone. Sometimes you're on calls with these people numerous times a week and sending emails back and forth. Sometimes you get rather friendly with them (especially if they're your customer and you're sort of obligated to be nice and polite).

Sometimes I get an overly friendly note in response that if taken on its own sure it makes it look like we are pals. But these people haven't even seen me! It's sort of amusing to think how friendly you can get before you see a person. I'm always a little taken aback. It's like hey I could be Jabba the Hutt for all you know. And I don't just mean large with a penchant for eating live food, but also diabolical and vengeful as well. I'm just sayin'.

Awesome Jabba the Hutt birthday cake courtesy here.

Great kid, now don't get cocky

There's something to be said for getting more important and respected in your profession and at your work. You get noticed more, you notice people treat you with more respect and deference than they did before, you're a lot more high profile. There's good and bad to this, obviously the growing plague of more and more meetings and phone conferences being on the bad side. But sometimes you are cruising along like the cat who just ate the canary and someone turns on the vacuum cleaner.

 

Now you're a scared cat hiding in the corner. Your goofs and mistatements are a lot more high profile now too. You can't hide behind the "well I just work here" when you're supposed to be running a project. Or to quote Spiderman's uncle, with great power comes great responsibility.

 

And it's tough to take that slap in the face. To know that you, oh great rookie whom much is expected, can also fail and do wrong every now and then. It's a painful reminder of your own humanity. Or to quote from The Philadelphia Story, with the rich and mighty, always a little patience.

 

You can't let yourself blow up like a balloon just because you're a rising star. That balloon rubber is awfully thin material and punctures easily. You'll need a thick skin for when you get blamed for other people's mistakes as often as you get blamed for your own. I think it's easier getting yelled at for something you didn't do than for something you know you goofed on. Even if you think you didn't know any better at the time you keep telling yourself you should have known better. I had this same problem more than a year ago and I've apparently learned nothing since. I'm trying to tell myself that on the inside a little humility is a good thing. But on the outside, I need to put my shield up and be ready to take no prisoners.

DARPA Thursdays: 3D Holographic Battle Planning

One of the challenges facing the military is how to effectively communicate a battle plan. If you're going to a physical place it's helpful to have as many visual aids as possible. One of the things DARPA has tried to develop along these lines is a 3D holographic display. And they've succeeded.

Not that 3D holographic display, this 3D holographic display.

It's called UPSD Urban Photonic Sandtable Display. It allows a 3D display that does not require any special glasses and allows up to 20 participants to stand around, look at it, and interact. Or interact so much as freezing, rotating, zooming, etc. Freeze and enhance! (I know mixing my Star Wars metaphors with my Star Trek quotes is just asking for it).

It can be any where from six inches to six feet and is meant to process data (possibly population or medical data) and interpret in like a 3D graph. They're working on incorporating that with previous 3D technology they've developed for mapping that is supposedly being used by troops in Afghanistan.

So what does this mean? Doesn't look too impressive admittedly at the moment but clearly the capabilities and options are there. And while now it's being developed by the military for urban missions I could see it being used by city planners and developers or by aid groups who are going into devastated areas. I can think of a wide range of applications from medical professionals looking at treatment and spread of disease or just basic medical care in a geographical area to a Dilbert-esque style marketing corporate tool who wants to see how well they can sell widgets in a city and monitor real time influence or purchase of their product to find better ways to appeal to the consumer.

The technology and the implications so jaw dropping even Nien Nunb can't keep his mouth closed.

Enhance your experience

Wizards of the Coast, current owners of the D&D property, are having some fun today. Only question is, will they be forced to offer their owlbearskin rug for sale eventually in the same way ThinkGeek was forced to sell the Tauntaun sleeping bag that started off as an April Fool's prank?

Character Arc

I wanted to step aside from my usual topics and discuss one that I think is deadly serious: the presence of Han Solo in Return of the Jedi.

 

If you watch as many Star Wars documentaries and "making of" films as I do, you know that Harrison Ford asked George Lucas to kill off his character in The Empire Strikes Back. He (Ford) felt that Han had already made the switch from self-serving scoundrel to supportive rebel. If you watch the DVD commentary from Lucas on Empire you know that Lando Calrissian is meant to be character-wise who Han was in the first (or fourth) film. He's only looking out for his own interests and hasn't yet made the jump to supportive of the rebel cause.

 

However, at that point in the series Han has not made the jump either. True he's helping the rebels and staying there, but now it's out of love for Leia and friendship with Luke. He still hasn't committed to sticking around beyond having sympathies with these people and doesn't yet see the cause as his own. Not until the last movie does General Solo actually get ready to lead an expedition to the moon of Endor without even asking or volunteering any of his friends. He's so in support of the cause he initiates it on his own. That's full circle. That's why Han Solo needed to be in Return of the Jedi.