A Collection of My Thoughts

Here is a collection of the many things that interest me

[rbearsat]

Carlton Soules may have figured the numbers out in November to beat Judge Nelson Wolff. I sure found some eye-openers when I dug into the numbers. It all hinges on some key things lining up, but Judge Wolff is vulnerable and here's why I think so. Greg Brockhouse will love this one since I play a little on his side of the street.

[rbearsat]

A little more backstory on the now famous 45 day tweet. Huge didn't do themselves any service by providing more detail on why this tweet took 45 days. What makes the situation even worse is that this story reveals that many of Huge's social media campaigns take a long time. Methinks the company needs to revisit their process and look for some flexibility and speed.

[rbearsat]

Greg Brockhouse looks at the candidacy of Mike Villarreal for mayor of San Antonio. He focuses on the expected tango with Diego M. Bernal in the race next year. As I pointed out in my prior entry, both of them vying for the same base in the same area at the same time with the same policies will create a fracture that could throw the door wide open for others. But Brockhouse points out a way party bosses might fix that.

[rbearsat]

This is an interesting comparison of whether to optimize Facebook advertising for reach or engagement, each with different messaging models. While Facebook advocates reach, it looks like the jury is still out.

[rbearsat]

In the Internet of Things, the ability to process massive amounts of information quickly and reliably is going to require new software architectures. SQLstream is integrating with some of the leading open source streaming systems.

[rbearsat]

A lot of people can debate the validity of this study, but thinking about it more, I agree with the position. Before the Museum Reach was established, it was a muddy creek with no real draw. Now it's a beautiful linear park providing connectivity and appeal to the area. A lot of the development, including restaurants, hotels, etc. would not be in place without the development of the Museum Reach. More to come.

[rbearsat]

Watching the Edward Snowden interview by Brian Williams. Say what you may say about the guy, he is probably one of the most articulate people I've heard on this subject anywhere. Maybe it's because he's been in so many conversations about this subject, but there are some interesting points he brings out. Before all my patriotic friends come slamming me for this, I'm no supporter. I just think he's a very intelligent and articulate individual.

[rbearsat]

For my social media peeps, there has been some confusion on Facebook's recent change to the News Feed algorithm. The change only affects apps that implicitly share like Spotify. Explicit sharing apps, like Hootsuite, will continue to appear as normal.

[rbearsat]

Austin is starting to struggle to meet its water resource needs. A lot of the problem is that it depends heavily on the Highland Lakes for water, which are now at a third of their capacity. "The lakes lose almost as much water to evaporation as the city uses every year." It's time for Austin to look to different solutions for capturing and storing water for consumption.

[rbearsat]

This is a great example of the connected vehicle and could lead to improved utilization of our nation's freeways. While not advisable in the city, on the long stretches of freeway between cities, the convoys could save money, allow longer journeys since the lead driver could be alternated, and concentrate vehicles.

[rbearsat]

Mike Villarreal has decided to run for mayor of San Antonio. Some are asking why he would leave the Texas House for this position. I dig a little deeper into what I think the motivation might be. I believe it's to have a larger impact than serving as a political minority in a body of 150 members.

[rbearsat]

Looks like Microsoft is kicking the cool technology game up a little through Skype, who they acquired a while back. Great to see this kind of innovation.

[rbearsat]

A very in-depth interesting look into the challenges faced by IBM in moving into the cloud computing space. It echoes a lot of the problems I've seen with other cloud companies and showed more about how AWS continues to lead the industry, in terms of innovation and product.

[rbearsat]

The other night, while watching a Nature episode about swarm intelligence on PBS, I wondered how this might apply to the growing technology craze of the Internet of Things. Looking deeper into the technology models, it's pretty apparent we are starting to get to a point where our own lives will operate using swarm intelligence, which really is not a bad thing.

[rbearsat]

Tomorrow closes out the Texas primary season and sets the state for the general election in November. Most likely it will be one of the most conservative statewide slates on the Republican side going up against a rag tag bunch of Democrats, save Sen. Van de Putte, who'll battle Sen. Dan Patrick. That's really the race I'm focused on, since I really don't see Davis making much of a showing against Abbott.

[rbearsat]

When I first saw this mailer, the Sesame Street "One Of These Things" song came to mind. Looking deeper into it, Ben Philpott of KUT Austin finds the anonymous source seems to have co-opted the tea party "brand" without coordination with tea party groups in Texas. That's got some up in arms since Dan Patrick, not David Dewhurst, is considered the choice of most tea party supporters.

[rbearsat]

Today is Memorial Day, a day that began at a time when our nation was healing from a war that took the lives of over 600,000 relatives, friends, and neighbors. As we spend time with family and friends today, let's do as those who created the day of remembrance did and reflect on the service and sacrifice of our fellow citizens.