An Eye to the World, an Eye to the Net
This blog is supporting the current campaign to stop SOPA and PIPA act in the USA. Wikipedia (US) is all down and you can see the screenshot above. However you can still see what you could do to Take action.
Some nice explanations why the bills will be so bad for internet:
Last Friday I was at the Lean Startup talk given by Eric Ries. You can follow his blog here. The talk was very good, and gave an overview of what is in the book. I’ve bought the book several weeks ago, and I have to say that I found it remarkable.
The main idea of the book is to run startups as experiments. In particular a startup should focalize to build a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) which is used to test a precise set of hypothesis. The result should either confirm or negate the initial intuition. The Minimum Viable Product should be considered as a test bed. It’s not just the “Ship it!” idea, it’s organic to the Build-Measure-Learn cycle. This cycle should be the fastest possible to achieve what is called the Pivot, the time when if the things are not working, it is time to change completely the strategy and try something else.
These are a lot of concepts all packed together, so stay with me and I’ll try to go through them.
Building
The building phase is when you are focalized in creating the first prototype. The first prototype is utopia. What is really interesting is the MVP. The only goal of the MVP is to test some hypothesis, to better understand the customers needs (the real customers): what they want and what they like. Real customers using the real thing are completely different story from the what you can get from the market research.
Measuring
Measuring is very very important. Understanding what is going on is a must, but even more important is to understand where to look and what to measure. A very interesting concept introduced in the book, to understand what are the real metrics to keep under eye, is the engine of growth. The engine of growth is a metaphor, comparing the process which makes a startup growing with a combustion engine, which needs to be tuned for the best performance. The engine of growth is the main way a startup will grow, acquire new users and become a sustainable business. Three main engines are suggested in the book: (i) the paid engine, where the revenues are used to acquire new users, using advertisement and so on, (ii) the viral engine, where the software or the service gets automatic diffusion thanks to the massive support of the users and the virality as well, (iii) the sticky engine, where the users are coming back and their are addicted to the service provided. Each engine has different type of metrics which is vital to that type of engine.
Learning
The learning is the part where the experiments ran are used to understand what is good and what is bad. Because we started with clear falsifiable hypothesis, it is possible now to declare if the objective has been reached, or if we didn’t hit the point.
Persevere or Pivot
Being on top of your metrics, and getting the outcome of the experiment is all in preparation to understand what should be done in reaction. In particular the decision to Pivot or to Persevere. Eric at the talk suggested to schedule this meeting ahead of time, to avoid the stress to announce it, but also to have a fixed point. This could be used has the deadline date, from where it is possible to work backwards, understanding which metrics are needed to arrive at the pivot meeting with all the informations necessary.
Conclusions
The book is a remarkable piece of work, and I think it is one of the best out there in the light to bring some formal theory in startup creation. I have really enjoyed the talk as well, so if you’ve got the possibility I’ll suggest to go. I also suggest to read this book to everybody which is thinking to launch a new product or launch new startup. It’s just very broad and full of good ideas.
P.S.: I’ve bought this book from Amazon in kindle format and I’ve just discovered I can’t lend it to friends. I understand that the terms are legally different and I didn’t buy a book but the ability to read it when Amazon is pleased, but this would not happen with a real book. I hope Amazon changes this crappy system as soon as possible and give us back the ability to do whatever we want with our books. Pretty please.
Kindle 3g
I’ve bought a kindle (the e-ink family with 3g) 6 months ago, middle august pretty much.
From then on, I’ve got to say I’m loving it. In a not particular order:
Data about the accidents happened in UK (focus on Cambridge City Center). The Map is based on Open Street Map plus OpenData. Check it out here.
There are tons of guides published on journals how to write a good paper, so these are some quick tips which could be added on top of these. I’m trying to be general, but I’m writing this mostly for my use and they reflect my view.
I’m using the second person, so it’s more direct and motivational.
Feel free to leave comments/integrate these.
First of all, state the problem.
If you are working on something, most probably you are trying to solve a problem. Well, you’re not alone. People are working on something that is close to your research topic (if not the same) and you have to review their work. In big depth and with a big breath. It means you have to address the problem from all (at least the majority) of the points that comes to your mind.
Dont’ talk about your solution, yet.
Then you have to talk about the different solution people provided so far. Go into the details, pick up if have been re-used somewhere else and follow that lead. On and On. Be exhaustive.
Basically put the readers in the position where she will be able to say exactly what are the already proposed solutions so far, their strength and their weakness.
When you are finished with that, then you can start to present your solution, and what exactly it is the matter.
Describe the key points and be very careful to be as objective as possible.
It works it may be good enough in a non-academic environment. But not in academic environment. You have to motivate why it works with hard data, numbers, and logic arguments. Anything that can back up what you are saying is paramount. Possibly comparison or exact pros and contros. If you don’t do that then, it’s not good enough. Even if it works. You will be asked for more.
The assumption that you have made, or reason why you have used some solutions instead of others need to be explained. It’s difficult to pick these up, because you are very familiar with these choices. Most of the time this will look like self-explanatory. But it’s only for you.
Scientific methods described plainly
Why you are doing something and what is your thinking process is very important. A reader expect to follow you in the journey. That’s why you need rational hypothesis to drive your research.
You state your hypothesis, then you run experiments and simulations to disprove them. Try everything you have to bring them down. If you can’t, well then maybe you have something that you can put under more scrutiny, but you are on something.
Good luck.
We have just released Neuronvisio 0.7.0.
With this release it is possible to browse the models present on the ModelDb database, and have a look at the readme and at the properties of the Model.
Model Information and properties are presented in a quick way to the user
The Load Model button permits to download, extract, compile and load the model in one click. Sweet.
The other big things is that I didn’t write all this code, but actually 0.7.0 it’s the first release that features a contribution from another person (before was one man band!). Uri wrote the scraper for ModelDb and I’ve hooked it together in the GUI. We developed using the pull-request framework, which github makes very nice and clean.
If you’re interested in computational Neuroscience, and you are using NEURON, give Neuronvisio a go.
Lately, github has rolled out a series of graphs to visualize the commit through the time.
An interesting one is the impact graph. This is when everything started
Neuronvisio started as one man band project, actually as a spin-off of my PhD, when I realized that I was building something that was missing and that could be useful for other people as well. So I just detached the neuronvisio code in is own package, and released online. With time, Neuronvisio started to get some users, and people actually wrote enthusiastically on the ML about it. I was proud. Last August/September Uri decided to contribute to the software, to increase the features of it, in particular to plug it with ModelDB, making easy to browse the database, and to download and load a model directly with one button. I helped on the GUI part, while he took care of the ModelDB representation.
This is the graph of his impact on the software, at later stage.
I really enjoyed the Pull request method, and I have to say that github made the collaboration very easy and nice.It was good fun and I’m looking forward to other contributions.
The new features are not yet released (we’ll do in a bit of time), however if you can’t wait, you can grab the code from github master and give it a go!
After having promised it for a long time, I can finally tell a bunch of selected episodes of our BRO11.
The idea started long time ago (15 years, pretty much, when I’ve got my first two wheels machine), and it brew in my mind until the right conditions popped out.
So when Greg and Christine shown interested into the mad project to get some Harley and tour California, we actually got organized to do it. Organized it means we booked the bikes, and we got the flight from London to America! We finally set off for California, after I’ve managed to submit, with the idea to start from San Francisco and hit the road for 9/10 days. We didn’t arrange anything before except the bike, but we had a map!
We ended up making more than 2000 miles..
It would take too long to tell you everything, so I’ll just tell you same selected stories…
Getting the bikes
We have booked our bikes in March, however when we arrived at the Eagle Rider shop in San Francisco, they actually told us they have got a trouble with the reservation, therefore they couldn’t give us the bikes we ordered. While there was no trouble for the Fat Boy (my ride), the two 883 which Christine and Greg chose were not available… but Free upgrade!
Greg got a Dyna Low Rider, which had the long range pedal (you were able to stretch your feet all the way, easy rider style), Christine got a Street Bob, a bad-ass ride, all black satin, a nice dark looking. The bikes were big, but not as big as the Fat boy, which was renamed Battleship Bob.
I’ve rode an Xt 600 for nearly 10 years right now, but I never jumped on a Harley. When the guy started the bike, the sound of the V-twin filled the air. It was a hell lot of noise. It sounded good, very good.
When all the bikes were out, we jumped on, put the first gear and started to ride. I was impressed. I always thought they were beautiful but bulky, but I have to say that I was wrong. The ability to turn and the smoothness of the ride was impressive. It was still considerable the amount of space needed to turn, but that’s America, and they are not short of space.
The first day we travelled around the North of San Francisco, to get known the bikes and get the feeling of the riding. It was very good.
The road which makes you
As I said, we didn’t have a plan. We did have a map. When the question come up: “Which way ?” the answer was pretty easy: “South” – “Why?”‘ “‘Cause is down hill!”
So we started to go downhill, making the road as we went, following the advice of other bikers met on the road, or just coming up with a road instead of another just because it looked good on the map, and it was not a massive Freeway. We always find an accommodation for the night. A hostel in the vibrant town of Saint Luis Obispo, a super cheap motel with furniture from the 70s and which could be perfect for a Tarantino’s movie in Monterey, a travelodge in Eureka, Will’s base in San Francisco, and the duck-tape tent, which was hold together with duck tape everytime we were out in the wild, hitting a camping ground.
Racing the sun
When we left the Ocean and the Pacifica (the 1, this is a hell of a ride), we aim the mountains and the National Parks sitting over there. The plan was easy and not too complicated, however we didn’t think about one imortant detail…
A massive fields of farming area was placed in front of us, where the temperature was very high. To give you an idea, grab one massive hair-dryer and the point it on your face. Then select 60 miles per hour as speed. Hot air. Now, you can have an idea about the conditions of the riding.
At the end of this terrible stretch, we reached the National Park. The ranger at the entrance told us the first useful camping ground was at two hours riding, another one at 3 hours distance. The closest one was full, and the park operated a first come-first served policy, so there was no guarantee or way to actually know if there was a space, or if the space would be available when we reached the camping ground.
We decide to pursue it anyway. We stopped just after the entrance of the park, to get some water and grab some nuts as energy snacks. Then we jumped on the bikes, ready to ride.
The road turned to be super twisty as soon we set off, and our average decreased consistently to barely 20 miles. The condition of the road started also to deteriorate, due to same work in progress, with the result of loose gravel on the road.
You see, loose gravel is a dangerous thing with a motorbike, ’cause you’ve got to stay in the line cleaned by the cars’ tyres and not end up on the dirt, especially when you’re turning.
As soon we got accustomed with this driving, the sun started to settle down to get the another night rest. We were wearing the classic HD helmet, so no visor for us, except the sunglasses.
It was getting dark, and wearing sunglasses when is dark does not increase your vision. The race was set. Either the sun was going down, or we were going down. Bears are common neighbours in these areas, that’s way is warmly suggested to get a spot on a camping ground, instead to attempt some wild pitching in the park.
I was in front that time, and I decided it was time to hurry. The Fat Boy lamp was pretty big, although the darkness was advancing with fast pace, helped by the sunglasses. By the end, I was guessing where the was road, but slowing down was not an option, ’cause we needed to reach the camping ground, and fast. Christine was just beyond me and she was able to see my red light, assuming that the road should be at least close where I was with the bike. Greg was catching up from behind, seeing these two crazy red lights climbing the mountains like ants on crack, at full speed.
We outrun cars on a twisty mountain road wearing sunglasses. We hit the campsite, find a space, got some wood, open a bunch of beers, and light up a camp fire, enjoying the epic ride just happened.
It was epic. No bear visited us that night (although I’m not sure that there was none outside our tent).
Thank you
A big thanks to Will, which offer his house as base to start the trip. If you reading this, well, “there is a zombie on your lawn”, you know why.
Another big thanks to Steve and the guys at Lake Isabella, to offered us the space, the beer, the food and company for an amazing chat. We knew Californian people are cool, but you set the bar very high.
Last but not least, big thanks to all the bikers/people we met on the road who gave us hints and directions, tips and beers.
We come up with a video of the adventure, posted just down below with a bunch of picture, and even some road footage.
Keep riding!
Riding East during the BRO11 trip
I’ve been in California, and with a bunch of friends we have rode around the state for what was called BRO11 – Burn Out and Ride. We had a lot of fun and I will write more about this in a following post. If you are curious, that is a FatBoy, what I’ve rent, and we made more than 2000 miles. It was a very cool trip, indeed.
This is just a quick one to say that I’m back, up and running (kind of..) and on top of my Inbox (sort of..) 🙂
my thesis cloud
Thesis in, in the limbo now 🙂
I’ll be a bit less on e-mail for a bit (I think)
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