Solid State Drives - Fast & Prices Have Come Down

Own 2 Early 2011 MacBook Pros. When my wife’s hard drive failed, Apple does not stock the old hard drives any more. Our machines are now “Vintage”. (I resemble that)

Investigating further, SSD have come down in price. We had 500 Gigabyte hard drives could be replaced for $50 - $60. Got a 500 GB solid state drive for $160 instead. When her last hard drive failed November 2015 the price of the same SSD was about $350. 

Why spend the money? SSD have no moving parts, are much more reliable in laptops, generate less heat, and vastly speed up your computer. My MacBook Pro takes several minutes to boot up. My wife’s take less than a minute. Hers browses the Internet faster too.

If you need more than 500 GB, the prices are still high. 1 TB is around $270 - $350. Would use standard hard drive for large backup due to price. Some manufacturers offer Hybrid drives, but the SSD part is usually too small. Operating systems like Windows and Mac take over 100 GB to operate.

Intend to replace my original 6 year old hard drive with a SSD. Already increased DDR3 to 16 GB. Seattle Laptop (Route 99 & 76^th Street near Green Lake) will install a Kingston SSD and clone my hard drive for $240 plus taxes. My wife’s cost more because of the failing hard drive $280 plus taxes. Note - data recovery cost much more depending on the failure. (If you go tell Dan & Mike I referred you)

New 13” MacBook Pros cost ~$1,999 for the same memory. Think will get 2 plus years on our Vintage units before buying new MacBooks. If you want a faster computer, an SSD may be a reasonable answer. Especially as prices fall.

The Great Rewrite

Forbes and KPMG have created this wonderful video series on changing innovation is going to affect us all. Yesterday’s science fiction is today’s reality. New materials, new energy sources, new manufacturing methods, new intelligence and new tools for the future.

Companies have to go from one or two people to everyone creating innovations.

Please watch some of the videos. How are you going to adapt, thrive and create your own innovations?

What would you like to change?

http://www.forbes.com/kpmg/the-great-rewrite/#/

The Future is Here (Almost)

This video shows a paralyzed patient using his hands and beginning to get more and more sensation and movement in his body. This is the result of USC Stem Cell research.

This video is 9 minutes long and awesome. Have little to add but a question. If we can do this, what else can we do?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtWyyJL9LiU&feature=youtu.be

Credit: Patrick Cox from Mauldin Economics for sharing the video from BioTime’s Announcement of First Stem Cell Spinal Cord Therapy Results.

The Future and Technology

Predictions are the hardest thing to do. Nothing makes us look more foolish than looking at old predictions. Especially my own. Heck no one even gets the NCAA brackets right.

The past is an indication. No one knew how much airplanes would become the major way of travel shortly after the Wright Brothers showed the world how to control flight. Wilbur and Orville would be amazed at the number of people traveling all over the world in comfort compared to when they laid down on their wing risking their lives.

Going to the Moon was accomplished in less than 10 years, although rockets were used as weapons in World War 2. Who would believe that much progress could be made that fast from a commitment in 1962 and competition?

Who would have thought the Arpanet would grow up to be today’s engine of commerce now know as the Internet? How about all the apps developed for your handheld computer-phone? Closest prediction to cell phones was the Dick Tracy wrist radio.

So let’s dive off the deep end and look at the future technologies.

The self-driving car is a given based on all the development and investment. What is overlooked is the technology is being better developed for air travel. Autopilots were first demonstrated in 1914 by Sperry. Modern planes could fly without pilots very soon. Artificial intelligence is beginning to take off to new levels in the next decade or two.

Self-driving trucks will be commonplace in a few years with a robot to unload them at each stop. People may not have thought of are simple chores like mowing the lawns, trimming shrubs and weeding will be automated in the next decade or two. Look at the robot vacuums. Why will people stock shelves when robots can do it easier. People will be saved for interacting with customers. Physical work will be passé, and I could do without weeding.

Next how about space travel. Go from London to New York or St Petersburg in an hour or two by traveling above the atmosphere. Vacation and gamble on the Moon and orbiting hotels. Take a once in a lifetime trip to Mars. Airplanes, automobiles, drones will still be with us, but travel is much faster.

Shipping cargo will be done through transporters. Star Trek transporters will handle cargo, although they may be too dangerous for living organisms. No idea when transporters will be developed. Additive manufacturing machines to manufacture where needed all over the world, but we will need a more efficient way to ship through space.

Television and holograms in helmets will be replaced by images generated in our brains. Why have hardware when you can see and feel by playing in our brains? The Internet will have been replaced by 3 to 5 new generations of connectivity. This will allow humans to connect brains in small to large groups for desired purposes.

Medicine will have gone from curing illnesses to prevention. Aging will be history once your body has reach maturity. Dying your hair will be replaced by natural and unnatural color growing from your scalp. Worn out cartilage will grow in our joints. New diseases will pop up only to be cured in days. Life will be longer and more productive.

Crimes and accidents will be anticipated and prevented. Weapons will have gone from physical to light, sound and energy. Lasers are close to deployment on naval ships and not much longer for other platforms. Sound weapons are being experimented with. What other forms of energy weapons are next?

With hard labor automated, there will be an explosion of learning, philosophy, art, stories and music. Look at the Italian renaissance when slaves freed up the owners time. Time was put to good use.

Unfortunately there will still be governments, power grabs and challenges for every generation. But mixing of people all over the world will reduce war and crime. Look at how low crime rates have gotten in most western societies. Better understanding of people will prevent more people from becoming criminals, and prevent suffering from mental illnesses. Most societies will be peaceful.

There will be other unexpected improvements. No one can see around corners enough to know all the future. You probably have ideas I missed. What are they?

Will we get there smoothly? No. History is full of technology jumps, technologies used for warfare, people fighting change, lost generations to war, and societies stepping back. History shows humans developing major technologies which benefit mankind. That trend will always continue.

   

The Liar’s Club: Concealing Rework in Concurrent Development

MIT posted this interesting article about the issue of hidden rework in the development cycle. Your project can crash with surprise delays that destroy delivering on time, much less on budget.

http://web.mit.edu/jsterman/www/Liar's_club.html

Firms seeking competitive advantage to increase market share, profit, and growth have turned to concurrent development to speed the introduction of new products and beat their competitors to market. However like any other improvement process there are weakness and difficulties. Human nature does not want to be the bearer of bad news, and the managerial attention does not always help resolve the issue.

The F-35 is an example of concurrent development. While it looks like the development is now progressing well, the program looks like a money pit. The idea was instead of doing all the development on test planes, they could start production while still testing and writing the software necessary. Several years into the program design changes are still being made which require existing models to be changed, and the software is years behind schedule. The software on this program is critical to be able to use all the technology and weapons available.

The cost of the F-35 was getting close to breaking the Air Force budget before recently turning the program around. Some critic wondered if the day would ever come. (Don’t ask my thoughts on building one airplane to fill the needs of 3+ airplanes though) 

Did work with a smaller company that successfully implemented concurrent engineering in their development cycle. Why did it work? Reality was included with the plan, and being flexible enough to realize meeting schedule with an inferior product was worse than redesigning the product again.

On our first project we were working on the development schedule. The initial proposal was the standard design, prototype, testing, order machines & tooling, then start production. I asked, “Has any design worked the first time after testing?” The answer was no one could remember that happening. We need to plan for at least one redesign after testing and have a contingency plan for a second redesign. Including normal contingencies with average lead times in standard planning processes made the concurrent engineering process work. We used it both for new product development and product line extensions.

Back to fudging and hiding rework during development. This is a dangerous practice that can come back to hurt the team and the company. The natural tendency this setback is a small problem, and management does not need to know. What you don’t realize is your sponsor and other leaders may have more resources available that can speed up the redesigning and keep your project on schedule. Second the later a problem comes to the surface, the bigger the consequences for everyone involved.

Worked for a company that taught about Malpractice and the dangers to your career and the business. They made a video and repeated it yearly. Such danger for fudging, and little reward for doing it. We had one customer, the US Navy, and could have lost the business without their trust.

Leadership is doing the real work of getting things out of the way of your teams so your people succeed. Leaders have to make sure teams know they have your support to be comfortable to innovate. Besides only about 40% of software development project complete all features, on time, and within budget. Projects failing should not be a crisis but a normal situation to be handled calmly.

The quote jumped out at me ‘‘... don’t tell someone you have a problem unless you have the solution. You’re supposed to solve it—and then tell them.’’ This thought limits the chance to get more suggestions, ideas and develop more alternatives.

Found it helped if I showed up with the bad news, with some suggestions of my own or my teams, and was prepared for getting feedback & suggestions. More productive engagement came from being prepared and open. Make sure you are ready to deliver bad news and have leaders engaged when necessary.

Better way to manage your teams - Ask Better Questions

Doug Krug (http://elsolutions.com/) is challenging my focus on problem solving. He teaches managers to Ask Better Questions.

1.     “What is working now?” “Where are we already getting the result(s) we want?”

2.     “What is causing the results we are getting?”

3.     Re-clarify the desired outcome with questions like, “What is the goal/objective we want to accomplish?”

4.     “What will be the benefit(s) when we achieve the goal or outcome?” Or, “What will be the cost if we don’t achieve our goal?”

5.     “What can we do more of, better or differently to get closer to the goal?”

Instead of starting with "What is the problem?", start positive and build on what already works. It focuses your team to build on strengths and look for more ideas to combine.

Results come much faster.