Thoughts Pad

First concept learned from my endeavor of getting prepared for a triathlon: You don’t know the basics.

Everybody knows how to breath, and that is taken for granted because we all do it and we all seem to do it right, since we’re not asphyxiating. Now, breathing right for proper oxygenation and prevention of side cramps or “stitches” is something totally different.

Just came back from my daily walk, and today I tried to sustain proper breathing throughout the exercise. It is amazing how hard it is to get rid of your wrong breathing habits and substitute for a right one. I just ended up figuring that we often take stuffs for granted just because they are natural and we don’t care to improve, while thinking we totally own the technique. Breathing is one of them, and I’m suspicious that walking is another… Gotta figure if I’m doing it right!

Just finished with listening to this audiobook, and it was so amazing that I wanted to share it here in my blog.

Drawn by my interest on Networks (no, I don’t mean the computer networks here) and the science behind it, just decided to give a this book a try, and I was amazed on all the sorts of networks mentioned in this book and how they relate to each other. From holywood networks, going through the Internet, Social Networks and Gene and Protein Networks and closing up the book with Terrorists Networks, this book is a must read for whoever cares about how things relate to each other, what’s the science behind it, what is a network hub, how to build or destroy (if possible) a network and how to recognize one.

You’ll end up figuring that networks are more present in our lives than we think, and how to take benefit of the natural manner in which things relates to each other.

PS: Interesting detail at the end of the book, when the author mentions that al-Qaeda its a scale-free network, and that there are no main hubs that if killed could dismantle the organization. He even mentions Osama Bin Laden, in a hypothetical analysis of what would happen if he were killed… Yes, you guessed it: Nothing. al-Qaeda would just continue with their terror business through their network of ever growing terrorist jihadists.

Do you know when a marketing campaign does so good that it goes viral and someone else comes and try to hitch a ride in the idea?

Volkswagen launched a marketing campaign during the super bowl, where a kid is shown in a tireless attempt to manipulate the force wearing a Darth Vader custom. All of that to show one of the car’s features at the end of the video. Worth watching:

Then, Marvel comes and does an extremely similar video, where a kid wearing a Thor custom is shown trying to unleash the power from Thor’s hammer. But the end is very different from what you would expect if you had watched the Volkswagen campaign:

When I was watching it, just though like: yeah.. daddy is going to bip his alarm, honk the horn or turn the engine on using the remote control, then suddenly the kid manages to unleash the power from the hammer. Then, you just realize that it wasn’t yet another vehicle campaign, but a movie one right after recovering from the shock. Now, try to think of the second one in a world where the volkwagen’s one doesn’t exist or in the mind of someone who didn’t watch it. Not so funny, uh?

Open Source is the key to innovation.

Innovation requires a lot of effort and while most companies rely on a limited amount of experts to develop the things they need, others open source whatever they develop and get a crowd of experts testing, using, debugging and contributing to their software in a scale that no company can afford to maintain.

That’s why Linux is the most advanced operating system in most of the areas that really matters. It is flexible, easy to extend and adapt to whatever environment you want: I’ve even seen a linux distro booting from a 1.44MB floppy disk! Today we have it running on a wide range of environments and machines that goes from mobile phones (guess what’s behind Android?) to large clusters and servers. Though I enjoy to work on my Mac, we all have to admit that Linux is the overall winner.

Now that people figured that Open Source is the key to innovation, we’re beginning to see companies and groups of people open sourcing their hardwares, like Facebook and Open Source Ecology.

Facebook just open sourced the technology they developed to build their datacenter, which involves all necessary info to build the server chassis, motherboard, power supplies, etc.

Open Source Ecology is a community trying to come up with the specs for easily building from scratch “50 different Industrial Machines that it takes to build a small civilization with modern comforts“. They even have an open source proposal for vehicles!

4 Years of Factor e Farm in 4 Minutes from Open Source Ecology on Vimeo.

With a world evolving so fast, I can’t imagine another model to cope with our ever growing needs and challenges. Now, let’s take part of this crowd, jump in an give a hand!

This week I read an article from Erik J. Heels, where he states that patents are not always worth a try for startups, mainly when it comes to software patents.

Well, it happens that I have being reading about this subject lately, and sometimes I do agree, sometimes I don’t.

Although being expensive and time consuming, patents do give its owner a reasonable advantage over competitors avoiding them from stealing the idea. Ok, I agree that it doesn’t always avoid that. Sometimes, enforcing a software patent isn’t that easy, and if they steal your idea early, then they may gain a huge advantage over you before you even get you patent aproved.

It takes something between 5 to 6 years to get a software patent aproved. That’s just about the life time of most technologies!

If your technology is good enough to strive through and live longer than that, you probably managed to gain the biggest piece in the market share. Then, would you really need a software patent to enforce competitors?

It happens that there is no easy answer to this. It is very hard to predict the future, and patents are assets. If you’re more conservative, then patents will certainly bring you some peace of mind. If you’re the type that doesn’t fear competitors and trust in your bat, then patents may be a waste of time and money.

But never forget: patents are assets. Though you may never use it, whenever you need it you’ll have it.

And no, I’m not going to start working as an IP lawyer or consultant, in case you’re wondering I’m being biased. It simply happens that I have a special interest on this matter.

What do you think? Is it worth investing on patents, or is it better to use that money and time trying to overcome competition?