Robert in Seattle

Well, as part of my high-priority tasks with setting up my new studio, I had to have broadband access up and running pretty quickly. It keeps me connected with everything going on in my world and actually affords me the luxury of doing a lot of different things just about any time anywhere. A lot of people don't seem to have the same philosophy about all of this, opting instead to simply turn everything all off in an effort to feel like they actually have total control over their lives.

Personally, I think that being wired is a good thing. If I see a call coming in from one of my kids while I'm painting at the studio, I'll probably take it. If I don't feel like talking to one of my business partners, I can always opt to let my phone put them into voicemail instead of picking up the call. I suppose that's why I still find Instant Messaging so intrusive. Maybe I'm being antiquated here but...

In any event, I digress. Yesterday, the Seattle Times ran an article on the abundance of free Wi-Fi hotspots in Seattle as documented by a recent University of Washington study. Better still, I found a Wi-Fi location site that includes the results of that study as well as many more nationally. Wi-Fi really looks like it's finally, truly close to its tipping point.

When I first moved in to my new studio with no phone line (and, of course, absolutely no Internet connection), I was quite surprised to find several unsecured wireless networks in the neighborhood. While some of them weren't exactly off the scale for signal strength, it did at least allow me to check my e-mail and look at the DOT webcams for traffic before heading back to the Eastside on the 520 Bridge (now rated as the worst commute in Washington!) Anyway, after losing two weeks waiting for Qwest to install a new phone line, Earthlink came through literally 24 hours after my phones finally came up and I was up on Broadband at around 2Mbit. Next step was to get up and running on wireless, not a task for the weak-hearted despite what everyone says. Especially when it turns out the damn equipment is flawed! I started out with one of those Microsoft wireless base stations that I bought on Woot! for $15.95 plus shipping What a deal, right? But after days and days of trying to get it working properly, I finally gave in and called their tech support number. Naturally, I was routed to India where a techie politely and patiently walked me through almost two hours of trying mostly stuff I’d already done. His conclusion at the end of all this? "Sir, after consulting with my supervisor, we believe your equipment is broken and we will return your money." Swell.

So Thursday, I went out and bought a brand-new Buffalo Wireless Cable/DSL WHR3-G54 router. (It helped getting a discount from my son who works over at the local PC Club in Bellevue!). Great product -- it actually installed without a hitch, but I still ended up calling their tech support as it would connect through my DSL modem. A simple download of their latest firmware update fixed the problem and as of last night, the wireless network was up and running. I'm in here today securing it so that we can make it private with some decent security. Wandered downstairs to the back of the building with my Sony notebook and was able to get a really solid signal while surfing over to the DOT site again to look at that nasty traffic out there again! (Adding their antenna did help a lot!)

So now I'm looking for wireless webcams to add to the network from my studio. This view's too good to keep to myself!

Studio View 3 

Studio View 2 

Studio Views 

Some of you know that I've been moving into a studio near Lake Union in Seattle over the past couple of weeks. The light during the day is great; a beautiful set of southwest-facing windows on one wall. The University Bridge frames the view over Lake Union.

So after almost 20 years since I last put a brush to canvas, I've decided to start painting again.

I was having lunch with a friend the other day and we were talking about all the fuss these days on the coming of the Right Brain thinkers into business and the mainstream. You know, they were always treated as an outsider in school whether they were a right OR a left-brain kid. Either way, they were called geeks or nerds. But the brainiacs were mostly the ones who excelled at math and science. In many ways, a lot of us got vindicated when the technology boom came in the 80's with the introduction of the PC. Being a geek became cool (and lucrative.) But artists and writers were considered even further out there on the fringes.

So now right-brain thinkers are getting some overdue recognition as the wunderkind of the decade. I think rarer still are the right- AND left-brain thinkers who can truly manage to straddle both sides of their brains without going mad! In fact, if you really think about it (no pun intended), too little -- or no -- communication between the two brains and you're schizophrenic or bipolar. Too much communication and you're either insane or ADD. Ahh -- the science of the brain! So the logical conclusion is that the most valued thinkers will be those who traverse the hemispheres with ease. Low single-digit percentile. Probably not a category that can be easily defined or tested by today's standards. I suspect once all the current trend dies down about right-brain thinkers as CEOs, everyone might realize that the scales just keep tipping from one extreme to another. (Hey -- this almost sounds like politics!)

So how would you define a WHOLE brain thinker and how do you find them?

Have you ever wished that newspapers could be corrected for their mistakes (Mistakes in newspapers? Never!)? Now there's actually a site that prints mistakes and their corrections. It's aptly called Regret the Error. There's even a link to report corrections and errors to them.

There have been a couple of pieces in recent days about the concept of living forever (or at least dramatically longer than we did a century ago). Inventor and wiseguy Ray Kurzweil was interviewed all over the place as part of the promo tour for his new book, Fantastic Voyage, describing his own attempts for longevity. Hell, the man even drives slower and no longer tailgates as an extra precaution for self-preservation. Apparently, Kurzweil thinks we may discover the secret to immortality in the next 20 years so we need to preserve our aging bodies long enough to get there in decent shape. Here's the Yahoo article on Kurzweil's thoughts. And here's a past interview from Wired with Kurzweil. Geez, 10 glasses of alkaline water a day? Hey, Ray -- if your ticket's up, it's your time to go, man! Get over it and live a little! And here's a video clip from Business Week's Catherine Arnst talking about how scientists are exploring ways to extend life and slow aging.

While I do agree that we'll make some incredible advances in medical science over the next 20 years, I personally believe we'll unlock some basic secret that ties all the theories together into one big meaning of life idea. Right now, we're getting too detailed in our science and focusing so much on the minutiae that the scientists (left-brain thinkers most of them!) have lost the view of the big picture for the most part. Think about this: in the past 20+ years, we keep raising more and more money for cancer research. The researchers keep slicing-and-dicing and finding even more different kinds of cancer. And NO cure yet! Same with AIDS and arthritis and on and on and on. In my personal foray into arthritis testing, I learned all about the different variations of arthritis and related ailments (I was eventually told I didn't have any indications of arthritis so I'm back at square one with my aches and pains). But I did learn that many of the types of arthritis have surprisingly similar symptoms with other diseases such as lupus. I have to believe that if one were to dig deeper into the root causes of the disease rather than simply trying to treat the surface ailments, we're more likely to discover common threads among each of these diseases. For example, understanding and incorporating traditional Chinese medicine and the concept of Yin and Yang balance might lead us to understand organ imbalances as they might relate to lupus or arthritis. When we can balance those things properly, I think everything else will fall into place.

We've made what look to be exponential gains in the past 10 years. The knowledge will continue to expand for a little while longer and then it will finally all implode into that one big discovery. For now though, we seem so close yet still so far away... But we just might make it in 20 years.

I've also posted this to my RobertsInbox blog because it's such cool stuff. Here are all the links to the latest goodies that Google has been working on, Betas and all. Some you may never have even known existed. Their skunkworks is called Google Labs. It really looks like these guys have the wind behind them and there's such tremendous momentum to their phenomenal success that companies like Microsoft will be truly hard-pressed to catch up for a while. These guys have figured out a real Interenet-based model, much like eBay settled into their model for being a global community trading platform. The Internet presented a way to generate AND aggregate a whole lot of information. Finding ways to search for and organize that dynamic flood of data is the challenge and opportunity. People are turning even more to the Internet for all of their information search needs -- like maps and pictures -- and presenting them with really cool ways to find it all seems to be Google's primary mission. Everyone else seems to have lost their way, including Yahoo! Another clear example of right place, right time, I suppose.

Well, I've been spending the past week or two preparing and moving into a studio down by Lake Union in Seattle. I'll post a picture of the view out my window in another post as I finally just got my phone service connected and I'm now waiting for Earthlink to provision my DSL line next (in other words, "Dialup, baby!").

What this also means is a little commute across the 520 bridge from the Eastside over to Seattle and back each trip. Fortunately, I get on at the last entry ramp and get off at the very first exit ramp on both ends so it makes the trip tolerable in most traffic. The bridge is not exactly one of the most loved of routes in Seattle, especially to daily commuters. Lots and lots of tech workers cruise over to the Eastside from Seattle each day to get to their jobs (with Microsoft's Redmond campus contributing to those numbers in no small way).

It does seem like a lot more Type A's drive this commute than any other so it's interesting driving. Like this morning. I got seriously cut off by what appeared to be another soccer Mom-type driving a Beemer SUV. As she swerved into the VW-sized space between me and the guy in front, I couldn't help noticing one of those ever-so-fashionable and ever-more-ubiquitous Yellow Ribbon stickers plastered on her rear door. Something about Supporting Our Troops or Breast Cancer. Anyway, it was something that shouted out to me that this was Someone-Who-Cared-Goddamnit-Even-Though-I-Drive-Like-an-Idiot-and-Just-Cut-You-Off. And so I spent the last part of my drive to the studio thinking about people like this:

Are they nice people trying to behave like bad-asses (behind the wheel of an SUV) or are they simply nasty people pretending to care (by virtue of having a cool sticker? Or t-shirt?)? Hmm -- social conscience as fashion statement... What a concept!

Judging from the recent spate of books with a new emphasis on creative CEO's in American corporations (see Tom Peters' 2005 book picks here), we're finally going to see proper dues given to a new age of right brain thinkers. Wow! Artist as CEO. I've always seen business and startups as just that: Conceptual pieces of work that evolve as works-in-progress. You start with broad strokes, work in details here and there as you go along, and you're never quite sure exactly how it's going to look when it's finished. But you're confident it'll be a masterpiece if you just let it flow. Too many of the left-brain thinkers get so mired in process early on and that's what often kills great ideas and great companies. In fact, you could probably make a case for looking at some of the great successes and failures of recent years. Google and eBay -- definitely right brain. Apple -- started right brain, went left brain (John Sculley et al), then back to right brain again.

Wired contributing editor, Daniel Pink, wrote a piece in the latest Wired that included excerpts from his upcoming book A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age (look for it in March -- I can't wait). The main link on this post will take you to that Wired article. A thought-provoking article with more to come. Watch for more on this!

I never cease to be amazed at the number of incredible creative pieces you can find online. No wonder Google's now coming out with a video search engine. Check this one out -- Panasonic was one of the sponsors for the Olympic Games in Athens in 2004. Among their artistic promotions were 10 Short Movies that they chose from artists around the world. You can check 'em all out by clicking on the 10 Short Movies link at the bottom of their intro. Be sure to check out Number 9 -- the weird aerobic poodle lady. A couple of the others are incredibly beautiful.

This one's got to have been somebody's idea of a parody done as a paper during college days. It's so well done that I spent a lot of time laughing about it with my buddies (alpha male stuff, I suppose). I mean, really -- does anyone take the Ladder Theory seriously?

Halley Suitt was among the speakers at last week's Blog Business Summit. One of my favorite pieces of her writing was a series entitled "How To Become An Alpha Male in 18 Easy Lessons." Really fun (and insightful) tongue-in-cheek writing from a self-acknowledged female geek. Right after this post, you'll find a link for another blog that's the exact opposite to hers. (Sorry, Halley!) Enjoy them both.