Building software since 1985
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The Project Manager is a human ESB, a Human Service Bus (HSB).
The HSB receives messages from humans, transforms them, aggregates them, sometime filters them, and forwards them to other humans or HSBs.
And they do that, following the corporate processes.
Like an ESB the HSB is a nodal point in an enterprise organization and, like an ESB, they can be a source of massive system failures.
Worth watching again, from time to time, and asking yourself “what did I do recently to make the world better?”
Sponsored by the Office of the Chinese Language Council International and the Michigan State University, Zon is a browser based “multiplayer, online learning environment designed to teach Chinese language and culture through gameplay”.
I personally don’t like very much this kind of educational games, I always find difficult to engage and loose interest after a few minutes. However, it looks like Zon has some interesting features, like the fact that almost everything can be spoken out.
The player can interact with almost anything, people (players and non-players) and objects, chat, get definitions and cultural or practical information. There are mini-games where you can earn cash. You can trade (and I hope can exercise the fine art of bargaining).
All in all it looks like a good idea but I am not into it, and it is sluggish…
It looks like there has been a lot of excitement in the micro-blogosphere recently since Robert Scoble relayed instructions the Chinese government sent to the Chinese web-sites requiring them to shutdown all entertainment channels during the 3 days national mourning in memoriam the victims of the recent earthquake.
A lot of people commented, criticizing the Chinese government and talking about violation of free speech and human rights, etc.
Ladies and gentlemen, on your own terms you are free and have free speech. What do YOU intend to do to commemorate the confirmed death of more than 35,800 people (expecting 50,000) or to help the 5 million people who do not have a home anymore ?
Elliot Ng on CNReviews.com also responded to these comments and I think he made a great work are explaining the lack of understanding that most westerners have towards Chinese people, read on
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born
There is something coming, as opposed to Yeats I don’t think it will be the end of the civilization, but there is a war coming.
Weapons are ready and skirmishes have begun.