Overall, I was not terribly impressed with what was on display at the Web 2.0 Expo. However, one piece of technology did catch my eye, the Kapow Mashup server. They can explain it more effectively than I can, so watch their demo movie where an oil rig information application is created by harvesting data from 4 public websites and presented using Google Maps as a user-interface.

Gripes: I downloaded this “alleged Java application” yesterday and had two problems: it won’t run on my Mac (it’s Java, write once, run anywhere, remember?) and the company has to decide if I’m worthy to receive a demo key to enable the application. They say they’ll get around to it in 3 days! Software I can’t run due to license key issues is useless.

Update: 04/19/2007 9:00am – The license key arrived. Less of a gripe, but it still took a day.

All that said, it looks interesting and I have high hopes for this sort of technology.

The tragedy at Virginia Tech this week is awful. Intellectually, it registers. But for some reason, unlike some other incidents, it’s not registering for me emotionally in any strong way. That bothers me. Have I lost my humanity?

Examining the situation I now have a working hypothesis as to why: there is so much suffering, pain, and violence pushed at us constantly that the threshold for emotional recognition is rising as a survival mechanism. For instance, how many days in the last six months has there been a story about a bomb, plane crash, earthquake, tornado, shooting, etc where the result has been lots of dead bodies? Heck, the news from Iraq alone is enough to make one numb.

I wonder if distance plays into the equation as well, local events do seem to filter through in one way or another. Is this the price of constant connection and instant global information? We’ll see. In the meantime, my mind and thoughts are with the families of the victims of Virginia Tech – I remain hopeful that my feelings will follow.

Not quite sure what to expect other than the usual booths with the usual swag and the usual Moscone Center crowd. Maybe there’s an interesting idea or two to be had. One has to wonder if the Web 2.0 meme has run its course…..There still seems to be money poured into the segment, but community this, social that, for the sake of doing so isn’t that interesting. Even with successful Web 2.0 companies, I still haven’t seen a business model that works (i.e., generates cash and lots of it.)

We’ll see what the expo has to offer. If there’s something that catches my eye, I’ll write about it.

    

Helps wash some of the taste of the last Ohio State game from your mouth…..The spring game is Saturday.

For those of you who procrastinate, now is the time (that’s me this year…) April 17th this year to get the Federal and State tribute completed. But what about “hidden taxes?”



I stumbled across this chart and was unpleasantly surprised to see the growth in the gas tax over the past 20 years. It’s invisible since it’s rarely broken out of the total taxes paid on a gallon of fuel. I don’t object to the gas tax per se, but I do believe there should be transparency in the taxes citizens are asked to pay and some consistency applied to the situation.

Property tax, use fees, sales tax, vehicle registration, “insurance,” social security – these are all taxes and they add up quickly. Taxes are necessary to fund our civilization and infrastructure, but I’d prefer one, visible bill that is either usage based or income based. Wouldn’t you?