SEC Day 2

I’m at UH’s Software Engineering Conference again. Notes on some of the speakers:- Ben Galbraith – ajaxian.comThe conference organizers gave out incentives for the audience to ask questions: free books!  In response to my one question (toward the end of the day), I received two books: Grady Booch’s classic on Object-Oriented Design (already had it), and another book I’ve never heard of:  What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counter-culture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry. It’s been a very fun read so far: introducing personalities in our industry that I’m already familiar with (Engelbart, Ted Nelson, Alan Kay, etc.), but in a whole new light: sex, drugs, and rock & roll!  Lots of acid trips here. To note: Bill Gates completely missed out on this aspect of the personal computer industry 🙂 

KPFT @ NetSquared

Ernesto Aguilar, Program Director for KPFT, spoke at NetSquared last night. It was an interesting discussion. One thing he brought up was the issue of copyrights for content they have started to archive. They’re interested in the Creative Commons license model, but also want to be able to make money off their material too.

Recently, I had wrote Ernesto, asking him advice on performance rights, so it’s interesting to see this issue is relevant to KPFT too. I encouraged him to adopt a Creative Commons license, one of the non-commercial licenses, and then come up with an easy mechanism to license their content for performance, reproduction, or film synchronization.

Now, to find an “easy mechanism” – that’s the hard part 🙂 It’s something, though, I’ve been thinking about doing …

Startup Houston Weekend

Erica reminded me that Startup Weekend Houston was arriving. Darn! I’m just too swamped this weekend to attend. But, I did attend the Friday evening event at Stag’s Head. Everyone was excited, the ideas were good, the energy was palpable. Too bad I can’t make the rest of the weekend.

A lot of great ideas were presented as the company project, but when sultry Laura Mays shared her idea, I immediately thought, “Nice; very tangible, pragmatic, and doable, yet has not been solved before. And oh so ‘Web 2.0’ too“. I had to leave before voting, but it was nice to hear that the rest of the group voted for her idea as well — so that’s on the development hopper this weekend, TipDish (check out the Startup website for details).

Again, sorry I can’t join the group this weekend; but tango night at was exhausting — the crowd showed up late — and after getting home at 2:30 am I slept straight solid til 11:30 am. Then it was at the shop again; Connie’s short-staffed, as one of her young workers was taking the SAT test. So, I stepped in, covering the register til 4:30 pm; it was a very steady stream of customers all afternoon. They’re preparing an Afternoon Tea party for 16 now, but more staff have arrived, so I’ve headed home. Too tired to swing by the Startup group, plus François has been home alone. So, maybe Sunday, before soccer, I’ll check out what’s being dished out 🙂

On Air with KPFT

I’ve been invited to be a guest speaker on a Fair Trade talk show with KPFT today. The show airs form noon to 1 pm; I’ll be on during the second half.

As a board member of Ten Thousand Villages Houston, a supporter of Connie’s own fair-trade certified tea shop, Té House of Tea, and generally interested in world affairs, fair trade concerns are important to me, so I hope this will be a good show.