Cell Phone Technology

Interview with James Johnson, CEO Vortis Technology

Posted on October 12, 2014
Vortis, James Johnson

James Johnson, CEO Vortis Technology

 

 

 

 

 

 

I recently interviewed James Johnson, founder and CEO of Vortis Technology, as he releases new information about his company on the cusp of the the re-introduction of Vortis cell tech.  Vortis has re-remerged as a leader in cell phone array technology and Johnson is presenting at IEEE Monday October 13, 2014 in San Jose.  James Johnson’s story is as interesting as he and his technology is.

He speaks of lessons learned from Valley insiders he worked with – lessons he shares in how to grow a company, how not to sabotage it, and brings his own personal ethos to the fore. Jim’s journey has not been an easy one or a boring one. Read carefully for not all lessons are so straightforward, compelling and end in success.

Vortis Cell

Here is James Johnson on “mastering the art of the comeback with a little help from your friends”. He refers to the post A Cell Phone, A Problem and A Journey: Vortis Technology

JAMES JOHNSON:   As we help others understand Vortis and promulgate the technology I look forward to sharing our Vortis Story.

Your articles on betrayal clearly show a human stratum of discontinuities between honest people and lizard level hypothalamus types where the roots of greed and fear are borne (not to mention political spin, some marketing and crooks). Good prevails over evil every time and the reason is because it all balances out; and catches up!

I appreciate the title of Hero and want very much for my kids to know this; but truth is, recovery from crashed management strategy is betrayal; but what was the root cause?

This “Vortis Story” actually has many heroes. They are the unsung heroes such as Fernando Garcia, leading steel forming and machine production that produced value to one turn around I did; made easy by him. There are many in our validation and verification list who, among others, are also unsung heroes.

I have Mr. Campbell’s first book as a gift from a friend (80’s) and we can only dream of ethnographic studies such as his where he travelled to the deepest parts of humanity and location globally looking for that common thread between reality and myth. How amazing was he to find such shared commonalities.

I’d like to think I’m more capable as an ethnographic researcher than a hero. I do however work for heroes and have served very good, honest people and they are my heroes; in which I would take a bullet or a hit if need be; but my military and cliff/scuba rescue work taught me how to concentrate in extremes; why failure is not an option and that it’s all just a process to honor.  Using preventive techniques work well. This is why I got into the Science of Reliability and wrote the first paper on failure mode and effects analyses; why management fails and what are the elements in common.  This paper was built off of our 1985 “First Corporate Valuation Software Program”; now used by financial and government as a standard today.  Thanks Hans Schroeder [bearval.com]; you are a hero!

In any start up or turn around I ensure the dialog removes “sales pitch” and includes “reporting progress” based on rational metrics and Continuous Improvement.

In a political environment (hidden agendas) mistakes are used against people.  In a honest business development process mistakes are congratulated [for extending ones self beyond the Peter Principle].  Same mistakes are not tolerated but learning from mistakes is a mandate!  If I were a hero, I’d claim this ground as my territory!  Continuous Improvement as a means to flip any scenario—this is the tool I used!

In addition, the use of present tense (“we are now doing this) over future tense (we wantabe doing this) changes a culture to focus on “what is, is!”  Our strategy discussions and agreements and goals will provide the future talk; plenty of it!

A company that is calm and eliminates the “rush job scenario” [Quantum Humanistics] will find that doing things slower; actually picks up efficiency and effectiveness.  A derivative of the tortoise and the hair; and there are variations and stratums about this.

As a Silicon Valley Director with experience in  (C Level) Reliability Science, Quality Assurance (Management Science/Theory) and Forensic Finance,  I have enjoyed helping people build more reliable firms around more controlled growth and change.  QA Works; when it’s worked!  In 1992 my nationally published paper was on the history and science of globalization quality assurance and Quantified of the Implementation Process. This is the science of dissemination of innovation [good ideas and how change is adopted–or not).  Firms who optimize the four variables change fast and sustain their growth as part of an ongoing process control network of organic growth and value.

Our focus in the valley was how to help a company migrate out of the 80’s (Star Wars; easy pickin’s from trickle down economy) to the 90’s (“wholly shit; Offshore Global Competitors Coming; and beating us?”).  I helped a firm transition quickly that became Silicon Valley’s #1 competitor [sustained for over 10 years while growing 3X’s].  How?  Teaching everyone that life is a process and we need only see it; wake up to cycles and do it with love, vigor and vim! http://www.jamesrjohnson.net/al.htm

Okay, what is the definition of a hero?  This is one who is conscious of the gap between one’s known skills or capability to the known risk before him.  The larger the gap, the greater the fall potential.  In rescue, we just focused on reliability, training, communications, team, etc.  We never felt heroism because this is more like playing; on the cliffs and ocean but with a serious purpose!  Perhaps the bravest thing people could do is let go of loss and live with it. Then turn your life around afterwards with a new meaning and new goals.

One hero in my high school was our friend in San Bruno Mark Brelsferd who won global  motorcycle Champion; Go Mark! That’s him in his firey crash; that he recovered from. His crash [and survival] looked  a bit like mineJ

Mark and I road dirt bikes in San Bruno, where PGE’s pipeline management showed more worry about good ole boy network than my ole neighborhood and his customers of San Bruno. Wow! They blew up the ground! I can’t imagine how they missed that.  spending time on Quality Assurance or reliability or  Process Control?  Nope!

Coincidently I played my saxophone in a fund raiser for cancer patients; and one of them was the PGE pipeline director.   He’s been there forever and I wonder what preventive Actions he’s focused on and why bad managers can’t understand that a “surprise” is a major defect in their process?  Their goal is simple:  NO SURPRISES!

As I was contacted by PGE, I proposed a solution similar to the NASA Risk Management Overlay process they used to mitigate risk of fire and events in the Space Station.

In this matter, it is not the solutions; it is the implementation process that fails!

Anyone walking the grounds understood its movement and it would have taken only an “ask” for drivers to be the eyes on the grounds and notices of interest to review feedback loops and compile priorities and additional capacity loads. However, when you ask these managers about QA, you see headlight eyes; and who understands process?

Dan Kottke too is one of my heroes!  Dan is a keyboard partner in our band Quoi whom I learned later worked with Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs [never enters his mind to brag] as one of the three guys who built the little Mac and started Apple.  Dan told me he and Steve Jobs were in India when they found an apple orchard and enjoyed it for a week around the area.  Sitting there, on the slope; biting an apple; Steve had his ah ha moment.

I call that ah ha moment a Quantum Humanistic (QH) ® circa 1987] in that often times; a flow of life force one way or another is guided by such moments; mostly bad such as PTSD events, etc. that it is life changing. A series of smaller ones, like the Tessla vibrator, if in synch, can cause a butterfly effect globally.

An example was when I was surprised to see Apple advertising they now stock Beatles?  At first, this is a no brainer; but why just now?  Then it dawned on me:  Apple Productions [Beatles] tried to tell Steve he couldn’t name his company Apple.  Guess that was their mistake trying to tell Steve not to do that!

Dan and I both went through a lot and leaned on and learned from each other between 2007 and 2012 when my cognitive dissonance came from the betrayal of some international directors of our Scottish Firm.  This dominated my world as his struggled for his daughter grew.

Dan, as I, needed to fight; in courts for our father rights!  He actually studied law just to ensure he exerted his fatherly rights; for his daughter.

Thank you Dan; I owe you big time! You are my hero for helping me when these international executives double crossed us.  They dished out [Myers] Lemons and I’ve had to stir it up and make lemonade.

Dan Kottke was and is a brutally honest hero and accidentally upset Steve Jobs for telling the truth about their time together (and a fatherless child).  See how easily start-ups can be derailed by honesty and someone else being threatened?  That then migrates to hostilities and in Apple, the start-up, Steve cut Dan out.  In a scene in Pirates of Silicon Valley, [thankfully] Steve Woz [an example of all that is good] simply wanted to focus on technology and save Dan by giving him stock; just before he quit.  That action, along with Dan’s focus made Dan a Silicon Valley Hero in my book. Bottom line for Vortis; Steve Jobs, a forgiving man, stayed friends with Dan and by his reference, Steve introduced me to his emerging markets director in London to address process and quality Assurance issues for Vortis’ African Associates.

Thanks to Steve Woz; the love of life revealed itself with Dan and Stock as built an amazing life that I was a small part of as we spent years enjoying Palo Alto as I sought to pivot from our Scottish Firm’s management failures and betrayal.

Steve Jobs is without question, a hero for Vortis!  Having said this, Steve exhibited typical mistakes CEO’s make at a customer complaint.  In beginning when encountering problems from holding and shorting two elements of the rim antenna, his first response was to tell his customers to hold it differently (a typical denial response).  He later retracted and admitted internal managerial failures; and oh so many lost jobs on that.

Steve actually was the first CEO of a major competing telecom who was actually proud of his new antenna design.

Thank you Steve for your love, energy and humanity even though your moving sphere of reality was just your field of view as you helped others reach your place; and me and Vortis!

Dan is a father! He has the way of a father. Fathers who take responsibility are the real heroes; and those who go after the industrialist to build for the next seven generations.

Brenda Battat, former National Advisor for the Hard of Hearing who lifted Vortis to national leadership as she later became a presidential advisor.  Her history is even more amazing as she worked in communist China in the 70’s; helping them understand western culture.  What a hero she is and thank you Brenda.

Jyoti the spiritual leader of the International Counsel of 13 Grandmothers who travels the world teaching that the root of all religion isn’t war; it’s peace!  Imagine!  As far as QA is concerned, it’s a bit discerning to know there is a bias to stir up war; rather than end it.  It is a profound awakening to understand that those hired for Peace in the Middle East do realize they’ll lose their job if they succeed!

Steve Jobs helped accidently when he trumped industry.

Jim Phillips, Motorola’s former antenna designer loved the Vortis!  Thanks Jim; you have passed but you will be a part of Vortis History.

Steve also influenced an old friend who invented the embedded antenna and whom I worked with in 1999 when 20/20 News released the first major story on cell phone issue; as I was a Director in the first high-tech start-up.  OMG; danger?  Quoi?

Rob Hill, my partner and Chief Technical Officer was Steve Jobs’ distinguished iPhone Antenna Designer.    Rob is the inventor of the Embedded Antenna for cell phones and Apple’s innovative rim antenna designer.  The antenna worked well but the package failed to be integrated according to design rules and Apple learned to follow instructions next time.  I wonder who betrayed the Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA)?

It wasn’t betrayal that sent Steve Jobs clamoring to apologize upon being busted about the antenna issue but it’s amazing the politics surrounding Antennas. It was a management defect [correctable].

Rob’s been around high tech and without question; he agrees; “these guys know exactly what they wanted to do; from the beginning!  They make conscious choice.

When our world leaders stop, bend or break communications, you can bet there is a hidden agenda.  The BP Oil Spill was a QA Matter and unfortunately; who cared about QA?  Ask roughnecks about QA and you’ll likely get tossed out; but certainly not after the BP Crash and you should see the good things Halliburton Drilling Operations are doing to reliability and Quality Assurance as I worked with their group on new plans!

We are here to help the hard of hearing; not rake in big bucks or sell our souls to highest bidder.  When people betray partners; in QA, we search for the root—we get under the politics; into the hidden agenda and determine factually and evidentially; WTF!  Mistakes are costly but great educators.  Bad partners use mistakes against you.

Thankfully, most of Vortis Associates are honest, energetic and loving so all our projects rolled out well and showed much promise and new horizons.

So many other heroes are unsung.  I’d rather be ordinary.  My daughter Jaime Lee Johnsonquoted me in her college entry letter: “there are no extraordinary people, just ordinary people doing extraordinary things.”  We believe this!

I love, however being a scientist and when I see humans create bad things from quantum humanistic characteristics that go astray or awry, I like to help.  Continuous Improvement is that help!

I can see Joseph Campbell’ myth to reality process [or vice versa] as its kind of like the migration of moving from a free world state of being to one of religious wars and patriots who come to learn war is better than peace [for the arms sales]!

We are here to help the hard of hearing.

If we rake in big bucks it’s because we did it right from the start!

I have worked with too many people whose battle cry is “cut cost; cut back; stop waste, etc.”  In an organization where performance, quality, cost, service and capacity are equal players, the result of “cutting things” without understanding impact elsewhere is usually devastating for the customer and ultimately for the company.  I remember what Prop 13 real estate tax change did to California’s Services to its customers.

Creating Value is our goal; we do this by learning best practices which is achieved by open, honest, collaboration [see Wikipedia].  Go figure that our would’s only commodity nowadays is information.  Because of this, secrecy and betrayal is the way of the world!

I’d like to change this and help top managers understand that Quality Assurance, C-level Reliability Techniques and Process and Forensic reviews are good.  Be honest,  build your company on a holistically balanced approach!   How do you know? You’ll know when you are comfortable understanding that surprises are a sign of bad management.  If you ask about Quality Assurance and they look with headlight eyes; train em Daniel!

 

More on Vortis and Jim Johnson : The Hero’s Journey

 

 

 

Big Tech General Voices

Bedtime in Palo Alto at the Apple Store

Posted on September 17, 2014

As I took the pic, a homeless woman asked me: is someone spending the night here? What followed was a great conversation and here’s a shout out to Annette on University Ave and her one year of sobriety after 40 years.

And to Larry, for giving Apple his all in wait time – you and all the others bring some fun to the store. You can always find Larry camped out with an interesting group around him and some good conversation when Apple has a new product.

Big Tech

It’s About Time. Meet The Apple Watch.

Posted on September 9, 2014

The much anticipated and the (already) much maligned Apple Watch was released with fan fare far and wide. For over a year the world has heard wild rumors about the Cupertino company taking aim at that blank space on your wrist. We came to expect Apple to be releasing something similar to the Apple Watch today as we read quotes about this years product lineup to be the best in 25 years with the company. And it has arrived.

Meet the Apple Watch.

apple watch

It has long been in use as a way to not disappoint those you have a scheduled appointment with and to ensure you arrive at your destination when needed. It has been a statement about yourself and your desire for aesthetically pleasing jewelry. It has been a keepsake that many people pass down as a token of past generations. But Apple has changed all that. Now, many will stand up and yell and say Movoto or Samsung has already changed the way we think about a watch. But they are wrong. Samsung has come close to the way we can use technology on our body but Apple has changed the way we think about using a watch.

It used to be that a watchmaker was an artist. A man who would craft together a precise number of instruments to create as precise as possible instrument to tell time. These parts were all built by hand and we reveled in the finest of hand crafted timepieces. Eventually, like everything else, a watch became obsolete. It became only an accessory to accompany an outfit. Or it was an investment such as a Rolex. But we lost so much appreciation of what a watch used to be due to the transformation of technology. But technology never transformed the watch. Until now.

Apple has spent a lot of money making this watch. Do not think for a moment that Apple has not spent billions over the last year to bring to market what an artist would consider “good enough” (artists are never truly satisfied with their work). Other companies have only dabbled in the transformation of the idea of the watch because they had opportunity to beat Apple. But when you take your talents into a marketplace that is hyper-competitive and you are going up against Goliath, well you better have revolutionized your sling shot.

Let’s rewind. Remember the release of the iPad? Remember when the world went crazy over how crazy they though Jobs and Apple were over releasing an “oversized iPhone”? Well they did. They were also criticized for getting rid of the plastic keyboard on the phone. And the CD drive. And the mouse. Well this is it again. This is the moment the critics will complain about the Watch being a useless, undefined category, waste of space, too expensive, already done, not unique enough product. And they will be wrong.

When the Apple Watch is released we will see the innovation of apps and ideas of ways to use the device like nothing we have seen since the release of the iPad. This is a watershed moment for the life of the watch as we know it. It’s suddenly NOT all about time. It is about the space between the spaces that we never thought would affect the very fundamental ways we live our lives. From how we can communicate with our children, our homes, our cars, our money, our loved elderly ones, our work, right down to our social networks, the Apple Watch will become more ubiquitous than the iPhone because we won’t hide it in our pockets or purses or forget to leave it at home or in our cars.

Welcome to Apple Watch. Enjoy.

Government & Technology Voices

The Courting of #SiliconValley (and its #money)

Posted on July 20, 2014
silicon valley politics

Funny Money

A funny thing happens when a place inside of America makes a lot of money. Politicians take notice.

With the 2014 midterm elections just around the corner, Silicon Valley is quickly becoming a goto place for political funding and not just from local and state politicians but big time headliners as well. Of course Obama has made his way here on numerous accounts. He has held multiple fundraising events along the peninsula with pricey dinners and high profile appearances at well known executives homes. But that’s the easy money for a Democrat in Silicon Valley. It bleeds blue through and through.

What we are learning, however, is that Republicans want a piece of the action too. Rand Paul, the GOP senator from Kentucky, made his way west to speak to a group of individuals who are seeking to connect the digital 21st century to the analog 20th century Republican party (let’s be honest, Republicans do not make for poster boy’s of the technology revolution that is taking place). Paul had some good things to say about the progress Silicon Valley is making, even if it was coated in Republican rhetoric:

“I have nothing but optimism when I’m out here because I see amazing potential for growth away from the disaster that is Washington. I don’t have to think there has to be a governmental solution for everything,” the Kentucky senator told hundreds of people gathered in a hotel ballroom here. “… Don’t be depressed with how bad government is. Use your ingenuity, use your big head to think of solutions the marketplace can figure out, that the idiots and trolls in Washington will never come up with.

Paul was speaking at the inaugural Lincoln Labs Reboot conference, a multi-day effort to link conservative and libertarian techies with GOP political operatives and help Republicans break their digital disadvantage in recent presidential campaigns.

Paul is the event’s most prominent speaker. On Friday, he spoke at Mozilla on a panel about privacy  and raised money for his 2016 Senate reelection fund and his political action committee at a fundraiser hosted by technology executives and venture capitalists. Attendees paid up to $10,000 each to attend the event at a swanky steakhouse on the Embarcadero with a view of the Bay Bridge.” – LA Times

rand paul courts silicon valley

So, keep up the good work, Washington sucks, and you’re making lots of money. Sounds like the typical Republican message. Not exactly one of hope but definitely one good enough to rally around defeatists and easy-way-out-ers. Agree or disagree, but Paul would not be in our small, “liberal elitist”, counter culture part of the United States if he didn’t think that he could make a buck.

It doesn’t really show well for the conservative crowd to be affiliating with Silicon Valley.

Trouble and Debate On The Way

six californiasAs you are probably aware, 2016 is going to bring a laughable idea to the table – a six-way split-up of California. Oh sure, Silicon Valley as a state doesn’t sound pretentious at all and since it would be so small and easy to regulate it makes it a Republican’s wet dream. There would be infinitely more opportunities to divide and subdivide districts to create more seized power from the dominating liberals ruling in California.

Again, the debate here is the government is standing in the way of innovation and it is “rusty” in the way we take care of our citizens. But does Silicon Valley feel misrepresented here? Are the people and industries of these “liberal elitists” somehow preventing Facebook, Apple, HP, Google, Oracle, Twitter, EA, et al from moving forward and changing the world for the better? Is Theranos, with a board consisting of high ranking members of the Federal Government and Military, moving to the cheap red states of the south?

The message is staying the same but the money is real and so are the Republican operatives taking notice of how we can build all electric cars (environment), open our arms wide for immigrants who want to come and build their American dream (immigration), disrupt the way we think about marriage (civil rights), and create an industry that has literally affected every single person on the face of the planet while building wealth for hundreds of millions of people (innovation and economy). And for good measure we don’t have guns and still have Planned Parenthood and don’t mind it, either.

It sure sounds like Democrat’s are standing in the way of a “rusty” befuddling (Republican) Congress.

It’s not that the Democratic party doesn’t have its faults. They DO! It’s the problem that it is the same story, told by the same men, looking to advance their political careers by explaining how their opposition sucks and they need our money to help them do…what?

Solution?

Many of Silicon Valley-ers are attempting to break into political careers at the Federal level but the problem is that so much of Washington is stuck in the old industries of the South (oil and energy) Midwest (agribusiness) and Northwest (financial) that there is little room for tech. That is until the lobbyists show up to start paying off the politicians who need to be re-elected for their umpteenth term.

So, maybe Paul coming to the Bay Area is the first in a long line of Dem-Ind-Rep politicians looking for the next pay day.

But what is the solution? What is the end game? Keep moving forward. Keep disrupting. Keep thinking different. Keep being Silicon Valley. Government will always be behind the times, and as soon as it stops being slower to adapt than the private sector is when we realize that true innovation is in trouble. That is America’s story. This is how we move forward, by being noble and taking the risk to find the reward of both the monetary and intrinsic kind.

What the solution is not is Rand Paul’s idea: “What’s going to happen, whether the government likes it or not, there’s going to be a revolution,” Paul said. “And there already is this revolution occurring and I think we’re seeing the tip of the iceberg.” The “revolution” Mr. Paul speaks of is inflationary rhetoric. We LOVE revolutions. Heck, the USA was founded on a Revolution. The Silicon Valley is a revolution of sorts. But the last thing we need is a revolt against our government and creating upset in the system. That would cause all out anarchy and leave us vulnerable from the top on down.

In a word our solution is: Hope

Big Tech General

Apple + IBM = A (RE)new(ED) Silicon Valley Story

Posted on July 16, 2014
apple ibm partner

The New Era

You’ve all heard the news. Apple and IBM have ended their 30 year feud.

For those unfamiliar with the Apple and IBM spat of the 80’s  a little history lesson was in order. Perhaps what is most interesting about this announcement is that we have seen two tech titans grow up and put their big boy pants on.

Yesterday’s announcement of Apple and IBM to “redefining the mobile enterprise” is nothing short of a spectacular decision by two CEO’s of America’s engine of ingenuity coming together to help redefine and recreate a sorely outdated American corporate workplace. Taking this monumental leap forward – a leap surely not to have been even entertained by CEO’s of past – is a demonstration of how much maturation is taking place in Silicon Valley.

The Silicon Valley story is one that is growing up. While we will always have sex scandals and big brother taking hold in our little corner of the planet, the Valley is forging ahead in the 21st century by realizing why the tech industry started in the first place. To THINK and to Think Different.

While we can zero in on the continued story and plot of Apple and IBM and all the other headline grabbing news that the Silicon Valley story provides on a daily basis, this is the revitalization and redefining of American corporate cooperation. So, take this moment to revel in that idea. To see right before our eyes, two CEO’s take a bitter relationship, push it aside, and come together to help a vision become a reality inside every office space – large and small – in the United States and the world.

But Apple Won. And functionality lost.

Apple has taken the enviable leap forward with IBM and is leaving the “competition” behind while ensuring the artistic values that Apple holds so near and dear to their heart.

While we all need functionality to exist in the vacuum of life, their is nothing about functionality that truly inspires the human race. But Apple does. Or rather Apple’s egotistic approach to design.

Apple has shown a willingness to set partisan politics aside to team with IBM to help create, what they believe will be a transformative relationship between the employee and data. But really if it were all about functionality then a plenty of other tech giants could have been doing this right alongside IBM. Microsoft. Nope. Intel. Nope. Dell. Nope. Blackberry. Nope. Samsung. HP. Google. Nope. Nope. and I was just kidding on that last one, Steve.

But Apple? Oh Apple, has taken this opportunity to launch years ahead of the rest of the industry and is taking IBM with them.

So why Apple? Because when we understand art in its simplest form – which is like recognizing the difference between pornography and art – then it becomes something that is relevant here and now and in the future. The simple fact about those other companies is they are always playing catch up. No matter how hard they try; no matter how many dollars they spend; no matter how much they criticize; art becomes forever. And if we know one thing about Apple, it is that they create with one specific concept in mind to ensure the success of the admirer of their artwork: good is the enemy of great.

Welcome to being sexy, IBM. Welcome to Apple.

Big Tech General Voices

Sex, Silicon Valley and Google – The Sex Trade Thrives

Posted on July 12, 2014
sex workers in silicon valley

sex workers in silicon valleyPROSTITUTION AS A CAREER? Your daughter? Sister? Oh, not ok for them?

This post has a humane and good for girls agenda and if you absolutely will be bored, do me a favor and read it anyway. For a female in your life. TY.

Hookers, Whores, Prostitutes?  If you want to make it glamorous, call it an escort service.  But before you do anything – THINK about the message to females of the world: your genitals are part of the new co-sharing economy and this is good for you and the men. 

I listen to the hookers explain why they love selling to geeks: big money, info about tech and a feel good feeling that they are helping them socialize. Hookers are flooding in, bragging about the cars their clients drive. They are in the news, defending their hourly body part rentals.

The sex industry is thriving in Silicon Valley. The death of the Google executive on his yacht at the Santa Cruz harbor at the hands of his hooker has the media explaining why prostitution thrives here. Money is the magnet, no surprise there.

We have all heard that and more: too many men who work too hard, make so much money, can’t relate to women, are on the spectrum, geeky, no interpersonal or social skills.  Or,…overworked tech exec with more money than Midas deciding  he really, really, really needs to relax with that delightful woman who just happens to share her vagina with hundreds of others.  Or maybe it is the sex addict with the dysfunctional childhood who can’t relate to a real emotional relationship and so he develops one or more addictions. Sex included.

Enough already. Stop. I don’t care if you call yourself a Courtesan and write a blog explaining how you are really like Mother Theresa (and Christopher Hitchens was hysterical in writing a book about her called, The Missionary Position)  saying, “I relax the men”, “we talk”, “We have a friendship” “Their wives don’t understand them like I do”  or  the meth or heroin whore.   I don’t care if you are  the one renting female orifices by the hour telling yourself, “She really enjoys our time together, I can tell.”

Folks, this isn’t about you. It’s about evolving at a level we haven’t been before and taking care of the kids and making sure this generation knows bodies are for much more than sexualization at an early age and on to the sale of body parts for an hour or two.  As long as we have idealization of prostitution as a career path we give young girls  the idea that sexualization is a career  and their bodies are ok to sell because they have no  value except what they are paid for to use them by men. And to boys, we say, “these people aren’t as smart as you and so all they can do is sell an orifice,  over and over and over.”

Enough.  Young girls do not have power to resist or argue or understand that this is NOT THE ONLY THING THEY CAN DO. They do not know that options may not be readily visible but they exist.  They do not know that people and opportunities exist to unveil the options. If we can do robotics, AI, stop aging at CALICO (see why Google named it that here: CALICO   )  then we can also help the girls who are told, “This is good money, you really don’t have any other options.”

Google is currently trying to make up to women and minorities the advantage men have in technology.  Google is offering to pay for coding lessons with a $50 million initiative. Let’s put this together: recently liberated from the pages of the famous sex buyers shopping experience: myredbook.com (closed by the FBI) and in face of the Google exec with a wife and five kids murdered by the hooker he hired (she shot him up with heroin, walked over his dying body and let him die)   let’s put together a Possibility Program at the Googleplex.

Hookers Code!

Larry, Sergei, Eric: If the prostitutes  are good enough to rent their orifices to your execs and the techies of the Valley, if they are good enough to pay $1k per hour, then teach they are good enough to code.  They brag about their Twitter accounts and how much they learn from the tech clients they have.  Their working girl representative is worried they will not survive without the Internet to keep the buffer between them and street walking, so show them: opportunity exists.  You can code your way to the top now with this tech. And learn to have a real relationship just like geeks have to learn to do.

Takeaway:  stop giving young girls with few options  the idea that the default position is doggie.  It isn’t.

And the oldest profession isn’t prostitution. That meme started with Rudyard Kipling in 1929.

TIME Magazine told us:

Anthropologist George Peter Murdock of Yale has concluded that prostitution is not the world’s oldest profession. Psychiatry is.

Professor Murdock began by noting that prostitution does not exist in any primitive society even today, but that the medicine man is universal. And the medicine man in aboriginal cultures is always a magician who practices faith healing.

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Start Ups Tech and Ecology

Technology for Ecology: Fishes, Robots and You

Posted on July 2, 2014
technology fishing

technology fishing

The Cost of Doing Nothing: Let’s Talk Tech, Fishes, Robots and You

There is a new technology that will feed the planet, save species, employ people and make ecofriendly a little bit faster and friendlier. It’s the biggest tech revolution you never heard of. And it is fighting to disrupt the biggest problem of all: apathy.

We all know there is a tree in the forest that falls with no one around and we ask if it makes a sound. Take it out of the philosophical realm and the answer must be yes if sound is compression of air and vibrations. Along with that ever falling yet always available tree we have other questions that are similar. Like this one:

If a species is here today and gone tomorrow and you don’t interact, care, know, eat, or farm that species, does it make a difference?

We can’t change the past, but we can imagine possible futures and choose one and make it happen. What matters is not what our ancestors did to wipe themselves out of existence (obviously they sent some DNA down the chain), but what we do, today, with what we have and how we deal with it is what matters in the here and now.

In the heart of Silicon Valley is always the new, new thing – new app, new social media, new medical device, new way of driving. We call it creative destruction. Proudly. Even currency is being disrupted. So here we are in the middle of creative destruction as in disrupt the medical industry, disrupt climate change, mobile payments, cars and currency and all this disruption is giving birth in short order to driverless cars and biometric payment systems and OTC genetic tests and pics that self destruct.

And yet, We also do some things just like they were done 5000 years ago. Although tradition has its place and if isn’t broken don’t fix it has merit suppose it just isn’t good for anyone, anywhere but apathy trumps action. Silent Spring was Rachel Carson’s wildly game changing best selling book that smashed the complacency of the world when she showed us birds were dying off because of pesticides. No birds, no singing and thus a silent spring.

Today, we have a similar problem, cloaked in invisibility and drowning in apathy. Our fish are becoming extinct. We are overfishing, we are slaughtering the fish that feed half the world’s population. $50 billion wasted each year. Remember that number. That’s what we are losing due to overfishing.

I want to know: How do we disrupt the apathy?

Let’s cut to the chase: let’s talk about fishing. Overfishing, to be specific. We are in the midst of a massive loss of species. We are doing nothing about it. But we can.

Call it environmental tech using robots. Call it the first creative destruction of fishing for 5000 years.

Precision fishing – that’s what Rob Terry of Palo Alto, CA has designed. He has amazing tech to the net that brings alive the waste not, want not philosophy.

This is from Rob, and now, to you:

When fishermen throw their nets into the water the contents of their nets remain a mystery until they haul them back up on deck.  Even with our best trawl-nets today 1 out of every 4 fish caught is the wrong fish and is  tossed back into the water, already dead. The problem is that after thousands of years of fishing primarily with nets the number of ‘wrong’ fish wasted is adding up and threatening a total collapse of our planet’s wild fish populations.

Read that again.  It isn’t hyperbole. According to experts there will be no seafood left to catch by 2048. That’s right, a total collapse of Earth’s wild fish. Gone.

I developed SmartCatch as a way of stepping in and saying, “Let’s apply some of our great tech to this crisis and build tools that can provide meaningful solutions.”  Our SmartCatch team is developing technology-based products to help fishermen save millions of fish from wasteful destruction and at the same time help solve many of the problems associated globally with the management of sustainable wild fish populations, the ocean’s health, and profitability/fiscal viability for fishermen.

Our first products consist of real-time video cameras, lighting and sensor arrays in durable pressure compliant packages that can be mounted anywhere in a trawl-net.  We are also developing escape panels that can be remotely opened and closed – and this means that from the wheelhouse captains can inspect the contents of their nets and control their catch.

We are at the cross-roads of either a global ecological and food source catastrophe or a dramatic shift in commercial fishing technology.  I believe we can meet the challenge and evolve into a new era – the era of Precision Fishing.  In the near future I envision fishermen deploying sophisticated sub-sea fishing equipment that will give them the ability to minimize waste and harvest target species with superior precision.  New technologies will result in more efficient fishing.   Entire fleets of fishing boats will begin to incorporate modernized trawl-nets equipped with integrated sensors capable of streaming relevant data up to secure cloud facilities. Once in the cloud that data will provide markets, researchers, and policy makers with critical intel for sustainably managing global fish stocks.

25 words or less? OK – A real-time robotic trawl-net system that allows fisherman to have greater precision in controlling the contents of their harvests, reducing the accidental capture of fish they don’t want – thereby allowing those fish to live, spawn, and be available to be harvested another day.

If you cared enough to count, thanks. Yes, more than 25. People are busy and so, for all you busy people, here is your take-away:SmartCatch is game-changing fishing technology that will save species and money by leading the fishing industry through the first major change in 5000 years.

$50 billion a year, 5000 years. The Chinese have a saying about change and making a difference: “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”

General Voices

iRobot Sends Us Cease and Desist..brrr Chilling Effects

Posted on June 28, 2014
domain name

    RESOLUTION:

iRobot “gave” us seven days to respond. We did so within 48 hours and they have abandoned their request we “give them” our name.  It’s hard to argue with ICANN, Tim Berners Lee and local case law, especially  when you missed the 2 week period when trademark holders were allowed to purchase, after which it opens to the public. That’s when we bought the name, legally and above board.

This is the second domain name fight we have won. IDG attempted a reverse domain name hijacking in 2000 with us for the name eInfoworld. They too abandoned that and the story of their loss was written up on Electronic Frontier Foundation and later, NYU Law. As Tim Berners-Lee says, the domain name is not the domain of the big guy, this is for everyone. “Whatever solution is found must bridge the gap between law and technology. One problem is that the better domain names will wind up with people or companies that have the most money, crippling fairness and threatening universality…It is essential that domain names be primarily owned by the people as a whole, and that they be governed in a fair and reasonable way by the people,

Finally, if it is good enough for US Patent and Trademark Office to not own uspto.com, why should anyone complain? See below for more on ALL the legal arguments that allow iRobot.guru to legally remain ours.

 

 

“STOP!”, they said, “You are harming us!”

A Cease and Desist from iRobot for trademark infringement, claiming harm and trademark confusion, arrived in our email.  This is the rebuttal.   It is being posted here publicly and you see it as they see it.

 

Dear  brandprotection@mm-irobot.com   (or Dear Lawyers Who Think I am a Threat):

Where’s the 12 step program for domain name buyers?

Since 1998 when tech and words, 2 favorite topics, converged in the realm of domain names, I’ve been hooked. But let’s look at the juxtaposition of fact, policy, and law before we look at context.

 The Sunrise Period or, You Had a Chance

If you wanted your name with the .guru extension, there was a time period reserved for trademark holders. This is called the Sunrise Period when only trademark holders could purchase during this time.  After that,  it was open to the public and anyone can purchase any name.   iRobot neglected to register a domain name using .guru during the time when ONLY they could have done so. If protection of your brand was so critical via domain extensions, why not obtain it?   A domain registrar had this on their site to explain it:

Nine new web address suffixes, including .bike, .clothing, .singles and .guru, have been made available as the net names system undergoes a radical shake-up. 

The new names, formally known as generic top level domains (gTLDs) are currently open only to those with registered trademarks. 

They will be open to the general public at the end of January 2014.Nine New gTLDs Rolled Out To Trademark Holders [bbc.co.uk]

I bought after the TradeMark Holder’s  time frame to claim the extension was long gone.


What Does ICANN Say About Claiming My Domain Name Should Be Yours?

According to ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), the governing body of the Internet charged with overseeing domain disputes, the party making the complaint must prove that the disputed domain name was registered in bad faith.

The following is a description of what they mean by Bad Faith:

b. Evidence of Registration and Use in Bad Faith.For the purposes of Paragraph 4(a)(iii), the following circumstances, in particular but without limitation, if found by the Panel to be present, shall be evidence of the registration and use of a domain name in bad faith(i) circumstances indicating that you have registered or you have acquired the domain name primarily for the purpose of selling, renting, or otherwise transferring the domain name registration to the complainant who is the owner of the trademark or service mark or to a competitor of that complainant, for valuable consideration in excess of your documented out-of-pocket costs directly related to the domain name;

 

Let’s Look At Me or Where’s The Bad Faith?

The Early Days of My Addiction
( hyperlinked domain names are in use by me. Many of the others are still owned but not in use.)

Back in 1998/99 I bought everything from eztaxlaw.com to iNetphone.com to cyberchocolates.com to eFares.net and eGameWorld.com to cowsareveg (now morphed into cowsarevegetarians.com .) I bought ThisWiredHouse.com and TheWiredHouse.com, e-dates.com, and the one you are reading now, www.TheSiliconValleyStory.com. There was once also a siliconvalleywebdesign but I traded it to a web designer for some work. I bought cyberluv.com and etracking.com.  I bought etake-out.com. I was trying to envision the future: dating, airline fares, wired houses, selling food on the internet, phones online, games.  I wasn’t wrong but I was never on top of the game with great names.

Some domains became sites, some got abandoned, one got auctioned off – that was etracking.com in 2003, the only one sold.

As Time Goes By

And over the years many more have arrived. Yes, I am addicted. I bought my son’s name, my other son and his wife’s name for their wedding, I bought my name, there is guidetomars.com, happinesspsychology.com,

dumbblonde.tv

and powerguideforwomen.com

and divorceandlawyers.com

and narcissisticabuse.com– oh, so many! So many!

The Future Is Now 

And this year, I binged. I’d been good, but I fell off the wagon.  In two binges, a few days apart, I bought these names:

InternetofTechnology.com

TheInternetofEveryone.com

SiliconValleyFuturist.com

futurism.guru

futurist.technology

futurism.technology

irobot.guru

SiliconValleyFuturist.guru

There was no malice aforethought! No desire to bring you down, dilute you, confuse, tease or otherwise annoy or decommercialize you.  In fact, dear lawyers who think I am a threat, I didn’t even think of you. I was actually thinking of my dystopian slice of life story which I have on my post about the movie HER. You can read it here: My AI story.  (written in 2000) I thought of that and it lead to the domain name you think I have that will harm you.

All of these names came at a time when I was  awakening to The Internet of Things (unknown by many back then, but I had met and interviewed  Jeremy Walker, CEO of IOTA (Internetof Things Architecture) and there was CES and oh, so much going on. See Jeremy interview here: Jeremy Walker and IoT

 

WHAT DOES THE LAW SAY?

 

Well, it doesn’t say what you threaten me with in your letter.

In Hasbro v. Clue Computing – ……. the court ruled that holders of a famous mark are not automatically entitled to use that mark as a domain name.   The court held that “if another internet user has an innocent and legitimate reason for using the famous mark as a domain name and is the first to register it, that user should be able to use the domain name, provided that it has not otherwise infringed upon or diluted the trademark.”

 

irobot.guru has nothing to do with you and everything to do with me and my current and past and future interests.  As Hasbro v Clue says: innocent reason..nothing malicious.  And I registered it first. One has to wonder, why, if it is so important to the use of your cleaning robots, why didn’t you register it?  Or, if your AI robots are hard at work, why didn’t they register it? Or warn you?  Actually,  the use of irobot.guru by your corporation seems less and less appropriate than might appear on the surface given both case law and the evidence of “who thought of this?”  Not the trademark holder, but the person who was thinking of futuristic issues with a whole lot of other domains registered at the same time. Me. Not you.

There is no cybersquatting, no commercial use, no attempt to associate with your name. In fact, there is nothing there.

Clearly, the name was not bought in isolation with you in mind and as Harvard says on its page on law and domain names, unless there is cybersquatting or competing use, there isn’t a claim.

So, Where Are We? 

Reading the above we find:  No court of law has found any infringement of your rights and I was the first to register it and have not diluted it. So when you say, “In view of your infringement of our rights…” clearly you are assuming a posture and position with nothing to back it up.   No one has infringed your rights and your statement is neither evidence or fact and holds no weight or validity.    In fact, it borders on a threat, but we will not assume that, just that you are unaware of the case law.

So, when you say you want my assurance that I

1. Immediately discontinue any and all use of the Domain Name;
2. Immediately and permanently refrain from any use of the term iRobot or any variation thereof that is likely to cause confusion or dilution;

I can tell you that 1) since I am not using that domain name there is nothing to stop so this is a moot point and 2) I will of course not use the term to cause confusion or dilution of your cleaning robots. I never would nor, as you can clearly see, was that intended.

Let’s move on.

If It Is Good Enough for the Government – The US Patent and Trademark Office Trademark

Let us look at the USPTO itself – the US Patent and Trademark Office. USPTO is the commonly recognized abbreviation of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.  So why is USPTO.com not owned by them? Why is it a privately owned domain name?  Because it, like me, doesn’t dilute, confuse, or try to make money off of the name.  It lives with no acrimony or bellicosity with its own exact name as a dot com.  And we can all recognize that .guru is hardly of .com value.  So we find a harmonious, peaceful, weaving together of the pieces of the web: the people and the government.  Good enough for them, so let’s follow their lead.  The government has USPTO.gov and this brings us to the  person whose words count for so much: the father of the www  who speaks often of the harmony that must co-exist for this to work.

Tim Berners-Lee

In a 2014  interview on guardian.com:

Sir Tim Berners-Lee told the Guardian the web had come under increasing attack from governments and corporate influence and that new rules were needed to protect the “open, neutral” system.

 He has stuck firmly to the principle of openness, inclusivity and democracy since he invented the web in 1989, choosing not to commercialise his model. Rejecting the idea that government and commercial control of such a powerful medium was inevitable, Berners-Lee said it would be impossible: “Not until they prise the keyboards from our cold, dead fingers.”

and speaking specifically about domain names, Berners-Lee has said in Weaving the Web

“Much of the conflict is due to the mismatch between the domain name structure and the rules of the social mechanism for dealing with the ownership of names: the trademark law…”Whatever solution is found must bridge the gap between law and technology. One problem is that the better domain names will wind up with people or companies that have the most money, crippling fairness and threatening universality…It is essential that domain names be primarily owned by the people as a whole, and that they be governed in a fair and reasonable way by the people, for the people.”

 

 

A PEACEFUL RESOLUTION 

 

Let’s  follow the lead of Tim Berners-Lee and build a bridge between law and technology, between corporations and the people. You are building bridges between people and machine, changing the world one robot at a time until they teach themselves. So, since there is no competition, dilution, bad faith, confusion and I love my domain names, let’s not turn this into a case of reverse domain name hijacking.

Robot_Vector_Character_with_Thumbs_Up_Preview

 

thanks to  Vector Characters – you are so cool for setting free these robots

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WHAT IS REVERSE DOMAIN NAME HIJACKING?

CASE NO. C-96-20434 from San Jose , CA Court in the TY , Inc Case says:

28. In a reverse domain name hijacking, the holder of the registered trademark in an entirely different trademark classification and business tries to take advantage of the fact that a small business or individual cannot afford to litigate the issue of an alleged infringement. The holder of the trademark, after deciding it would like to use the domain name itself, notifies the registered owner of the domain name of its specious claim, and simultaneously demands that the hapless individual domain name holder give up the domain name, based upon an allegation of trademark infringement and dilution. The allegation occurs, as in this case, totally without regard to the fact that, in a trademark infringement action involving two products of the same name, the registered trademark owner could not show infringement or confusion by the same mark in a totally different classification, and cannot prove dilution or diminution of the trademark by the mere existence and use of another product or service using the same mark. Furthermore, a domain name is usually just an address, as in this case, and not a product or service. It is at most a service mark, which by definition does not infringe a product trademark which is unrelated to the service.
 

Let’s not go there. As the web evolves, we can work to make it a cultural and political haven and not a gestapo ghetto of power over.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Almost Done

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

oh, and one more thing: when you say, “As you are no doubt aware” and “the famous iRobot trade name” , I have to tell you, I had no idea you were the cleaning robots. So, no, I wasn’t aware and your mark is maybe not as famous as you think. Yes, I have an interest in robotics, but not in cleaning robots and never saw your products before I looked them up today.  I flip a lot of robotics articles into my Flipboard magazine, Silicon Valley, but have never seen anything from you there. 

 

 

 

email received, June 27, 2014 

Dear Sir or Madam:

iRobot Corporation is the owner of the well-known trademark and trade name iRobot.  As you are no doubt aware, iRobot is the trademark used to identify products, services, activities and events related to iRobot Corporation.

In connection to iRobot Corporation proprietary rights over its famous trademark we bring to your attention the following:

1) You have registered, without iRobot Corporation’s permission or authorization, the domain name ‘irobot.guru’.  The Domain Name incorporates the famous iRobot mark in its entirety, and, by its very composition, suggests iRobot Corporation’s sponsorship or endorsement of your website and correspondingly, your activities.

Your use of a Domain Name that incorporates the famous iRobot mark constitutes trademark infringement and dilution of iRobot Corporation’s trademark rights and unfair competition.  Your use of our mark in the Domain Name is diluting use because it weakens the ability of the iRobot mark and domain name to identify a single source, namely iRobot Corporation.  Further, your registration and use of the Domain Name misleads consumers into believing that some association exists between iRobot Corporation and you, which tarnishes the goodwill and reputation of iRobot Corporation’s products, services, and trademarks.

In view of your infringement of our rights, we must demand that you provide written assurances within 7 days that you will:

1. Immediately discontinue any and all use of the Domain Name;
2. Immediately and permanently refrain from any use of the term iRobot or any variation thereof that is likely to cause confusion or dilution;

We look forward to hearing back from you within the above-mentioned time frame.

Sincerely,

iRobot Brand Protection on behalf of
iRobot Corporation
8 Crosby Dr, Bedford, MA 01730
781-430-3000
brandprotection@mm-irobot.com