Such is life.

This, of course, reminds me of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation, and I highly recommend this short (3 minute) introductory video on their products and business model:

Share and Enjoy

What tech-guru Douglas Adams (via ‘The Guide’ and filtered through Wikipedia) had to say about them, and about gratuitous tech in general, is this:

“It is very easy to be blinded to the essential uselessness of [their products] by the sense of achievement you get from getting them to work at all. In other words – and this is the rock solid principle on which the whole of the Corporation’s Galaxy-wide success is founded – their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their superficial design flaws.”

That said, guess what?  The USIP OSP will soon include elements of Spring, Struts 2 and Web Services.

Go figure.

But we will be incorporating them as intelligently as possible, and only where they truly add value. Also, I do humbly submit that we don’t have ‘fundamental design flaws.’ What we have created exists to help people perform better without a lot of fluff. Improving the infrastructure is never a bad idea.

I know most people say ‘Happy Chinese New Year,’ but I had a Korean friend point out to me once that Asians other than Chinese celebrate it too.

It is now the ‘Year of the Dragon’, a most auspicious year, and I know it will be a year good for all of us and for the USIP OSP.

Looking back, I won’t deny that the ‘Year of the Rabbit’ was a rather tough year. We had some victories, but they hard fought for. Which prompted me to look up this definition:

campaign – a series of actions advancing a principle or tending toward a particular end

Campaigns are long and often highly inconvenient for the people who embark upon them. They are not something lightly contemplated and lightly done, and they are always done for reasons strong in the minds of those who wage them.

It is our campaign here at Sea Change Simulations to see simulation being used routinely, and at all levels, of education. Ultimately the human race needs this to prevent catastrophe. (Our tools for destruction keep getting stronger, our ability to make better decisions is not keeping up. Etc. I could go on here, but I think you get the gist.)

We will continue on this campaign!

In the upcoming year, we will see the USIP OSP in use in several more High Schools and Universities. I’d also like to see us begin converting Sea Change Simulations into a not-for-profit, but we will have to see how that develops. Stay tuned. (And if you want to be involved in that effort, please let me know.)

May you and your family have a great Year of the Dragon!

I think its relatively easy to see what’s gonna happen in 20 years. Futurists tend to get the big trends right, even if they routinely miss many small things that turn out to become big things. But what really matters is seeing a way past the initial obstacles that frighten off most people, and then having the gumption and creativity to figure one’s way past the next set of obstacles – the set of obstacles that no one could see until you got further down the path toward goal.

That’s why innovation is hard. Lots of people have dreams. But implementing them, and finding a way past all of the obstacles is the tricky part. We have a simple vision here at Sea Change: in the future everyone will be able to create simulations. Everyone will be able to take the mental models stuck in their head, and express them directly as complex vitual worlds. Their idea and assumptions will then be clearly expressed, and it will be possible to easily share and improve them.

We have a long way to go to get to our goal. But everyday we get closer. We owe our clients and community of users for that. If anyone can do this, I know that we can.

On this national holiday of gratitude, I count you among some of my most highest blessings.

I want to make clear how rare, and precious, people like you are. Not everyone shares the vision that the world needs role play. Not everyone believes in the power of the controlled use of ‘make believe.’ But you do.

I want to share with you something kind of painful, to let you know how rare and special you are. What I want to share with you is this: We have recently been turned down for venture capitalist incubation because we are ‘ahead of our time.’ They cannot see a way to make a lot of money doing what we are doing for at least the next 5 to 10 years. I agree that we are ahead of our time, but the real question is, “How long can we wait?”  How long can our current, highly imperfect, system trudge along?

Most of the real problems today are complex, and our current systems have let us down. We have handed the real power of governance and decision making over to specialists. But the real answers must always reside within the reach of the generalists. A government ‘by and for the people‘ is a government that the average person can understand. We need to make our system of life understandable to the common man and woman once again. This is not possible without letting every person understand the different perspectives that most come together to make a system work. This is not possible without role play.

Many people will say this is impossible. They will say that ‘An average person cannot understand!’ We disagree.

You may have your own reasons for disagreeing. For me, it all comes down to this: the average person is the son or daughter in a line of thousands of human beings who have dealt with really harsh and brutal environments. The average person is a survivor, and they can deal with lots of complexity and challenge. Additionally, most of the details that the specialists seek to protect us from are really quite fascinating. Moving an interest rate up our down by .25% – which may lead to millions of people out of work, or a revolution, or the loss of one’s job – is actually a damn interesting question. It is not a question most of us face on a daily basis. But it is a question we can face in role play.

So while we may be ahead of our time, like a U.S. abolitionist in the 1840′s, we will continue on. We may not see the results in our life time, but it will come. What we seek, improving human decision making, may seem esoteric, but it is not. It is absolutely essential for our continued existence. We will continue on in our struggle.

God bless you, and may you have a great day with friends, family and love.

Sincerely,

Skip

Sometimes the good guys lose. Sometimes the wise fail. It is just a sad fact of life that sometimes even a great effort is not enough in the face of constant, prevailing, fierce counter wind.

What we want in life is ‘monotonicity.’ We want all of our efforts to build toward something good that we will someday be rewarded for. Unfortunately, life sometimes is not like that, and sometimes our efforts end up doing ourselves and others more harm than good.

Why do I bring this up?

Because I think that open-source software is kind of a salve for these kinds of ills. No matter what happens, the code we have created will be out there and freely available for people to use. Someday Gibraltar may crumble – its only made of clay. But the good we do here will remain.

I love the phrase “Do good and toss it into the sea.” We personally benefit greatly from all of the good that people have done and tossed into the sea, and now we are tossing our fair share back. What we create will not be perfect, but it will be something that other people will be able to build upon. I have seen many ship wrecks from which no good can come. But whether or not we make it to the shore we want to reach, we will leave a wake which will help those who follow us.

Welcome to the USIP OSP New Newslist!

One email a month here. Hope you stay subscribed.

I do want to be completely up front about something. The USIP OSP is open source software. Anyone can download it and use it for free.

This news list, however, is run by the commercial (but good) company, Sea Change Simulations. Our services are not free - at least until I can figure out a way to get the doctor and grocer to provide free services as well

We do provide a lot of free stuff, like the videos we just created on using the USIP OSP, because we want to grow, and because we Strongly believe in the mission. Our goal is to make simulation technology accessible to everyone. Period.

It is interesting, but I think I have personally met every one of the the 88 people currently on this list. I thank each of you for giving us the support we need to keep on going. Your words of encouragement do more than I think you know. Which inspires me now to quote yet another poem. This one by Emily Dickinson:

Hope

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

------------------------------------

Thank you for subscribing, and thank you for being a friend.

Sincerely,
Skip

Writing a good user interface is a lot like solving a detective story. One has to constantly be thinking “What does the user know at this point in time?” Actually, this is just the starting point. The entire list is more like:

• “What does the user know at this point in time?”
• “What has the user forgotten by now?”
• “What is too obnoxious and/or condescending to remind them of at this point in time?” and
• “How can I gently remind them of things that they need to be cognizant of?”

It is a difficult balance. If you are too careful, and tell them too much, they get bored and can fall into the trap of ‘scroll blindness.’ They will click and answer questions without thinking and make profound mistakes. This will leave them with a bad taste in their mouth for your software.

If you are not careful enough, they get immediately confused and frustrated, and hate your software, and curse your children, etc.

Leonardo da Vinci is reported to have said, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”  I cannot agree more. But the hard lesson here is that “Simplicity is Hard!” In this light, “Keep it Simple Stupid” is a lot more difficult than most of the people making that statement understand.

I wrote the following back in 2007 or 2008. (Its still online at http://www.skipcole.com/my_golb.html) Time for me to trademark the term Golb?

———————————————————————————

Hi,

The ‘wisdom of crowds’ and ‘swarm theory’ tell us how important anonymous feedback systems are, so I wanted to try something out. I decided to add a place for anonymous feedback on my web site. And I think I thought of what might be a good name for this: I call it a GOLB. Below is the explanation.

Blog: A place where one person can speak to all of the anonymous people of the world.
Golb: A place where all of the anonymous people of the world can speak to one person.

Below is a first set of standards for GOLB behavior.

1. Golbs are put up with the pure intention of self improvement.
2. Golb owners will not try to identify the person sending the anonymous comments
3. Golb etiquette requires that people leaving the comments are only doing so with the best of intentions.
4. Golb owners will understand that not all people will follow rule 3. Everyone has their own agenda, and some people are not above childish attacks. But the GOLB owner will try to understand where the person sending any comment is ‘coming from’ in a psychological sense.
5. Golbs do not notify the owner of new entries by email. The owner of the Golb has to intentionally go to them when they have prepared themselves to be mentally receptive to feedback.

So please visit my Golb, and let me know what you think!

And if you want help creating your own golb, please let me know and will help you.

Best,
Skip

———————————————————————————

BTW, My Golb is still active. Feel free to use it!

The phase is “Irrationality needs a voice at the table.” This is to say that, while we frequently make our plans based on perfect human rationality, it is important to remember that we humans are fundamentally not rational. We have our limits. So its important to recognize that and work within them.

This is not a newly recognized problem. Listening to an audio course from The Teaching Company on ‘Why Evil Exists’ I just recently learned that a character in Plato’s Republic, Thrasymachus, represents the voice of irrationality at the table. Of course, the trick is to listen to him, but to neither banish him, or drive him to leaving. Irrationality must be listened to, or else it will show up unexpectedly in the form of a surprise attack on 9/11.

Of course today, with ‘The Ultimatum Game’ and other psychological experiments, we are starting to map out how irrational people are. We may all be irrational under some circumstances, but in our normal day-to-day existence, we don’t normally act against our own best interests. Finding the edges of the uncertainty is a very important task, and I know that some diligent experimentors will continue to do so.

But in the meanwhile, while we still do not have a complete theory describing human irrationality, I think we do need to include that voice somewhere in our simulations. Otherwise the calm and reasonable people writing and conducting simulations may be putting completely unreasonable models of reality into people’s heads.

And how much irrationality is irrational? I recently blew up at a family member because she was not thinking about her future and working to create a bright one for herself. The quick end to this story was that my losing my temper lead her to change her behavior for the better. I don’t think that reasoned arguments would have worked so well before I had gotten her attention. So maybe while dealing with humans, too much irrationality is not the rational choice.

A tricky and delicate balance, but something we definitely don’t want to leave out of our simulations. To do so would be both counter productive and irrational.

It may seem funny that a ‘peace guy’ such as myself would be there, but I don’t see a disconnect. Let me explain why …

In my youth, I served aboard a fast attack submarine (SSN 660). Back then, I looked a lot like this guy:

Actually the reactor control panel that I sat behind is on display in a museum! (http://americanhistory.si.edu/subs/operating/propulsion/index.html)

Any way, back in the day, we spent a lot of time preparing for Armageddon. Not that we wanted for it to come. Paradoxically, the more prepared we were for it, the less likely it would happen. We were convinced, and I am still convinced, that if we demonstrated that we could retaliate in kind, that the USSR would never launch a first strike.

So we prepared and prepared for something we prayed would never come.

Strange, but necessary.

I see war gaming as the same. We game and game things out, so we can see how things can go wrong, and to learn what we need to do to make sure that we will always win. And the more prepared we are, the less likely anyone is ever going to ‘question the pecking order’ and attempt to take us on.

Not ‘peace through strength’ although that is part of it. It is ‘peace through preparedness.’

Of course, today’s world is very complicated, and the challenged keep expanding. That’s why I’m proud to be going to this event. The game never ends, and we have to keep on getting better at it.