meta-roj

the new york times is reporting (and others are too) that roy disney has resigned from the board of the company his uncle founded. i’ve often said that uncle walt probably wouldn’t recognize the company that disney has become – and that is a sad comment. on his way out, roy sent a letter to ceo michael eisner calling “once again” for his resignation.

the purported text of this letter is included in the extended post. roy has requested that the text of his letter be published, so there’s every reason to believe that i have found the actual text – that said, watch for the official version in an upcoming disney 8k.

i do want to emphasize a few points from mr. disney’s letter – things that i consider important lessons for businesses in general, and not just mr. eisner.

point #3:

you have tried to build parks “on the cheap” and they show it and the attendance figures reflect it.

point #4:

The perception by all of our stakeholders — consumers, investors, employees, distributors and suppliers — that the company is rapacious, soul-less, and always looking for the “quick buck” rather than long-term value which is leading to a loss of public trust.

point #5:

The creative brain drain of the last several years, which is real and continuing, and damages our Company with the loss of every talented employee

if disney can screw these up, anyone can screw these up. there is a high burden on public companies to set and meet expectations (and this is a subject i should expand on in some detail someday), and those expectations often drive good companies to flirt with (or even fully embrace) evil.

i’ve mentioned it in the past, but (it’s worth beating the dead horse) banking on stupidity is a bad long-term plan. some of us will eventually figure it out or see through your illusions. and those of us that do are, today, empowered to share that insight with the entire planet.

disney should be thinking in the long-term. it’s in a unique position, as a company, to focus on the long term, because it’s got amazing assets and a legacy that could carry it past quarterly paperwork.

with this resignation (and a few other maneuvers on the board at disney), it will be interesting to see if the company finds its soul again and gets back to the business of creating a wonderful experience for people, or if the track that eisner is on drives the company all the way to the dark side.

the edges are fraying at disney – and this peek inside isn’t very pretty. i hope by the time we thaw uncle walt, the disney corporation is recognizable once again.
(more…)

diebold won’t sue.

and

diebold atm machines get wormed.

now that this old security company got attention by screwing with the elections, even little worm issues make the news. destruction of the brand. and to think it could’ve been avoided completely if they’d just come clean….

update: professor lessig has more.
update: slashdot too

a big discussion happening over at slashdot, with a few choice comments from tim oren, glenn reynolds and the folks over at the register. the coverage already says plenty.

here is the floor statement by orrin hatch. i couldn’t find a copy of the actual text of the proposed legislation – i’m sure it will appear soon.

anyway, what this does is free up the entertainment industry associations so they can get on about the business of suing their customers with impunity, while their members dissolve any value they think they have.

by the way… has anyone gotten their riaa settlement check yet? i suppose i should look for that.

since i started talking about sunncomm, it’s been a bit of a saga here (1, 2, 3, 4), and i’ve used it as an example to emphasize a few of my own thoughts or theories.

i left myself a note to come back and look again, and there really isn’t much to say… (that’s not terribly surprising)…

here’s the little bit of sunncomm news i could find: on october 29, sunncomm announced their latest deal for cd-damaging (to quote kevin) code. since then, the stock price has dropped 30% (from 10 cents to 7).

for all the bloggers out there that followed this story along with me (i hope i got everyone), the bright light on sunncomm haasn’t killed it yet.

a quick thanks to everyone who bounced thoughts around with me. i’ll probably revisit sunncomm again later, if i can still find them.

i’ll be the first to admit this is way outside my realm, but since i’ve read and seen a few things about the “hydrogen economy” lately, i thought i’d apply a few braincells and bring this up so it could be shot down by someone smarter than myself.

i’ll leave it to others to explain the advantages of a hydrogen economy.

the question that got my attention is the “tipping point” – we need to figure out how to transition to a hydrogen-based economy. and, since i’m slightly crazy, i recognized an existing infrastructure that might (and i stress might) make things go a little easier – the natural gas distribution infrastucture.

there is a huge installed base of equipment that uses natural gas, and converting the distribution system to hydrogen is going to leave all this equipment without a functional fuel source. that’s much too expensive to propose (at least until there’s a fuel crisis). to make this more economically feasible i’m thinking, perhaps, it would be possible to keep the appliances in place for the rest of their “natural” lives with a little help from a black box – a methane re-composing black box.

the short version

distribute hydrogen gas via existing natural gas pipelines. build a box to ease the pain.

the long version

there exists an infrastructure of pipelines dedicated to the transmission of natural gas to individual buildings and households. this proposal would convert this existing infrastructure to the transmission of hydrogen gas.

once hydrogen gas is available at an individual building, it can be used for electrical generation (fuel cell), heating (as a byproduct of fuel cell operation and/or as a combustion process), hydrogen-vehicle fueling, even refrigeration and cooling (metal-hydride refrigeration cycle).

at the terminal end (in or near each building), the hydrogen supply would feed a combined household appliance that provides several “end use” functions from the hydrogen supply. this appliance would serve as a use meter, contain fuel cells for local power generation, operate as a heater (for water or space), and as a methane re-composer to provide a natural-gas-like fuel supply to run existing natural gas appliances with little or no modification.

wherefrom hydrogen?

two general processes are available for the production of hydrogen to feed the network – methane decomposition (CH₄ => C + 2H₂) and electrolysis of water (H₂O => O + H₂). there may eventually be other technologies – biological processes or something else – but this is a start.

methane decomposition
the head-end of natural gas pipeline network has a ready supply of natural gas (95% methane). with this methane supply, a large volume of hydrogen gas can be produced in a single location, and by-products (carbon) sequestered efficiently at the source. combined with methane re-composition at the household, the total atmospheric carbon burden should be significantly reduced (maybe even net-negative).

water electrolysis
water is also generally available at distribution head-ends, and has no carbon byproducts. companies have demonstrated hydrogen production by electrolysis at a cost of 3.9kWh/m³.

both processes have byproducts, which the utility will have to handle, or, preferably, sell in some form. it is technically feasible to “make hydrogen” at the utility end of the pipe. important to the utility is the potential advantage in environmental impact (convert several thousand homes to hydrogen in your service area at a time), and hydrogen provides a very-low-transmission-loss mechanism of moving power to the consumer.

creating a win-win-win-win-win

at the terminal end (household), the utility installs black boxes that provide new hydrogen-based services, and keep the existing household running. on the consumer-side of the box, these become available (perhaps in a modular as-needed form):

re-composed methane
for appliances (stoves, household heat, etc) that are designed for natural gas, re-composing methane at the household could make the house a net-consumer of carbon. more interesting, by making a natural gas-like fuel available at the house after the natural-gas infrastructure is converted, it dramatically reduces the total cost of conversion.

electricity – low voltage dc
more and more appliances are designed to operate on low-voltage dc power (witness the proliferation of wall-warts and transformers in your own house). with local power generation, a common dc supply for the house or building becomes practical. this could eliminate several conversion losses – from dc (at the fuel cell) to ac (household current) to dc (at the wall wart) – to provide more efficient power for modern electronic equipment that doesn’t require ac power.

this does, of course, demand development of a standardized dc outlet and dc-to-dc converters (which should be both smaller and more efficient than their ac-to-dc cousins). as a spinoff, even if this doesn’t prove economically viable, i would personally welcome a standardized dc power source. something a little more functional than a wall-wart or a bastardized car cigarette lighter.

electricity – standard voltage ac
of course, many household appliances do still require or function best with alternating current, so there’s a good reason to make this flavor of electricty available. this proposal provides a significant boost to net efficiency by eliminating long-haul transmission and high-voltage conversions in the grid. any surplus power generated could be sold back to the grid to offset operating costs.

heat
fuel cells produce heat as well as electricity, which can be used to provide hot water or space heat. depending on the design, this could be a “pre-heater” that reduces the burden on standard (electrical or natural gas-burning) heating equipment, or serve as a complete replacement.

hydrogen
if you can find something to do with hydrogen, it is available at your home. this could be used to fuel hydrogen-powered vehicles at the residence or serve in metal-hydride refrigeration equipment. i’m not sure i’d get too involved with rocket-engine design in my kitchen, but, the hydrogen is there.

does the math work?

in the united states, the average annual consumption is something on the order of 13,000kWh of electricity and 2500m³ of natural gas. this suggests that a household converted entirely to a hydrogen supply would require about 8600 m³ of hydogen gas (H₂ energy content of 3kWh/m³ at 50% efficiency) for electricity plus 5000m³ of H₂ for methane re-composition per year. ignoring gains in efficiency, this means delivering 13,600m³ of hydrogen where 2500m³ of natural gas is being delivered now.

based on the 3.9kWh/m³ electroysis figure, each household would then consume 13,600 * 3.9kWh = 53,040kWh per year at the point of generation.

i don’t have handy sources to determine if this several-fold increase in energy consumption is fully offset by the other factors. someone with their fingers on the figures will have to tackle this part for me… how big is the gap, really?

what else is wrong?

methane production from carbon dioxide and hydrogen (2H₂ + CO₂ => CH₄ + O₂) is demonstrated in biological systems (methanobacterium ruminantium), but i can’t say if it’s scale-efficient or commercially viable.

is the pipeline/distribution infrastructure for natural gas compatible with hydrogen gas? if the existing infrastructure can’t be used as-is (or converted very cheaply), then there isn’t any point in going much further. i know there are some issues with iron-hydrogen reactions, but i don’t know if the materials used in natural gas distribution are affected.

can the natural gas infrastructure handle the increased volume of gas? hydrogen is the most efficient fuel available by weight, but at atmospheric pressure it occupies a huge volume. if this is going to make pipes burst, the whole thing is a non-starter.

can a “smellable” chemical be added that won’t spoil fuel-cell operation? much like natural gas, some human-compatible way of detecting leaks is an important safety issue. both natural gas and hydrogen are odorless, but i don’t know if the “gas leak smell” will ruin catalysts or otherwise impede operation of fuel cells. if it does, is there an alternative? if not, we’re done.

i’m sure i missed a few deal-breakers, but…

i’m done now, tell me i’m crazy

it was just a thought… please proceed to shoot it down.

update (2004.12.06): stephen gloor has dropped in with a link to his variation on this theme. it’s worth checking out. while there are a few key differences, he presents some of the science that underlies both.

flush with fresh capital, and newsworthy once again, wired has a piece on friendster.

some of you may recall this comment about frienster’s management, and this follow up.

the wired bit suggests that management wins. they’re driving the smartasses away. still left unanswered, with the smartasses bailing, will anyone care about what’s left?

see for yourself.

yet another company has decided to compromise [what should be] its core corporate value in a silly, offensive attempt to hook existing customers on new stuff. then compounds the error by spinning it as an “ease of use” issue, rather than confessing their sin and making it better.

as reported in the register, and seeding a lively online discussion, belkin is the latest to get my attention.

the offense from belkin is that a software “upgrade” applied to belkin routers periodically grabs an http session and redirects it to an ad page for belkin parental-control software. great idea. yes, of course i want to be hijacked by my own network.

no doubt someone in marketing came up with this. they didn’t think about the response from the customers when they figured it out (were they banking on stupidity?) they didn’t consider the impact on the trust relationship with their existing (and future) customers? they didn’t consider the impact of the realization that belkin not only has the technical ability (as does any other company providing network infrastructure components that are upgradable), but the willingness and intent to inject code into the customer network that results in unexpected behavior? could it be worse? did they consider these things (and others) and decide to implement this anyway?

sure, today’s upgrade might just be a nagging advertisement a few times a day, but tomorrow’s upgrade could be… oh, i dunno… a router that blocks access to competitors’ sites? i guess the sky’s the limit. that’s why it’s important to trust the vendors that provide infrastructure components, and trust is right where this one hits.

Eric Deming [that’s ericd@belkin.com] (quote via newswireless.net)

Without trying to sound too stand-offish, we are not talking about SPAM here. Parental Control is a subscription service, and Belkin wanted to make registering for the service very easy. Traditional methods of registration, such as asking the user to go to a website or navigate to the Router’s internal Web page to enter information didn’t meet the ease-of-use goal.

Eric Deming [that’s ericd@belkin.com] (quote via the register)

I know this feature might be misunderstood and might PO some people. I know the manual could do a better job explaining it. These are all things that we at Belkin are working to remedy.

i think we understand very well. we have a new definition to play with: “unsolicited commercial webpage.”

the basic premise here is that marketing people don’t make policy decisions any better than lawyers. funny, that.

surely, it can only be a matter of time before this overwhelmingly successful marketing tactic is employed by other companies. imagine your next ford playing ads for new ford accessories every few minutes on your radio. imagine your next dvd player interrupting movies periodically to remind you that the company that manufactured the dvd player has arrange an excellent deal for you to buy some particular brand of microwave popcorn. and, of course, your next cd player bringing you a friendly message from the riaa – “don’t rip this cd” in the middle of random tracks.

take the hint, companies. pissed off customers are not the kinds of customers you want.

congratulations belkin, you’ve joined the league of companies that have gone out of their way to prove they can’t be trusted. this great idea might just cost you everything.

additional info is available at slashdot, news wireless, boing boing, kuro5hin and surely many more to come.

update (2003.11.09 6ish iam): one last check at the belkin website reveals this:

belkin

Important message from Belkin:
Belkin is aware of some recent postings that claim that Belkin wireless routers are spamming users during the setup process and periodically thereafter. It is not now, nor has it ever been, the policy of Belkin to intentionally spam our customers or anyone else. Belkin offers a free trial of our parental control feature in our routers, and to make our customers aware of the feature itself and to give them the opportunity to take advantage of the free trial, we have tried to direct users to the information regarding the parental control features. However, since this has become a source of concern to our users, and it is Belkin policy to address the concerns of our users quickly, Belkin has decided to remove this function from the routers. Each router’s firmware that incorporates parental control as an option will be changed.

take it for what it’s worth, they’ve decided to pull the tactic.

update (2003.11.11 8:30am): the message has changed.

belkin

Important message from Belkin:
In response to a recent Usenet group posting stating that Belkin spams its customers through its routers, Belkin Corporation apologizes for the concern this has caused and is taking action to address the issue. To allay customers’ worries, Belkin will offer a firmware upgrade that will be available via download from its website (www.belkin.com) on November 17, 2003. This upgrade will rid the redirect completely so that no additional browser windows will appear during the router’s installation process. Questions can be directed to our dedicated networking customer support line at 877-736-5771 or e-mailed to kannynmc@belkin.com.

the first, and probably more interesting (to me, anyway) bit of diebold trivia to merit my comment is this comment by tim oren. i’ve been dancing around this point, but tim cuts to the chase – “how to destroy a brand, in one easy lesson.”

item, the second: the eff has filed suit on the issue. this is an angle of the story i’ve avoided, preferring to stick to the policy and business lessons i’m being handed, but… now the lawyers are in it, and maybe something interesting will happen with the dmca and the concept of fair use.

and finally, we have this bit from wired on how they did electronic voting in australia. in six months. with $125,000. and without hiding anything or creating the appearance of impropriety. more info from the company is here.

now, will someone figure out how to get these compromised voting systems contracts off the books and replace them with something we might trust?

this is election day.

update: according to this, the $125,000 development cost of the australian system is $70,000 less than diebold’s contributions to the republican party in the past two years (assuming they both used the same kinds of dollars).

while cruising around doing a bit of homework on one of those things-i-promised-myself-i’d-post, i stumbled into this quote:

McGuire, an analyst with GartnerG2, said: “Nobody has figured out the perfect business model on how to make money from digital distribution, so we need to have as many experiments as possible.”

i assume this mcguire is mike mcguire.

i may be reading a bit too much into this short comment, but it evoked a strong response in me… there is no perfect model.