Sunday, October 16, 2005
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I was hanging out at the Amsterdam airport and suddenly I ran into Abhishek and 2 of his teammates. They way on their way to Redmond to participate in the customer advisory panel on RFID.
It was nice to hear that RFID project was moving along nicely.
I wonder when we get RFIDs at retail stores. Walmart scaled back on their implementation of mandating RFID tags on all the goods received by them largely because the suppliers were not ready for an overhaul of their inventory management system.
In the long run RFIDs will be everywhere but it might take a few more years.
Last time I bloged about the Shower in Narita airport a few people asked about the exact detail whereabouts. I will keep a list of these little oasis so you can break up your 20hr flight nicely.
- Tokyo - Narita: 5$ showers for 30 min. The place is incredibly clean and has lots of hot water. You can get in and out in about 30 min. You also can hang out in their lounge for a while and rest of comfortable couches.
- Amsterdam - I have heard there are showers here but have not personally found them. However there is nice quite lounge with big leather sofas close to the first aid station on the second floor. Highly recommended if the sound of snoring passengers doesn't bother you.
- Singapore - By far it is the best airport on earth. They have a movie theater and mini hotel and showers. If you have a semi long transit you can take a bus tour of the city. Since they don’t let you out of the bus you don’t need visa. If you are more ambitious you can arrange your flight to have 20 hr layover. Then go downtown and do some shopping and then to Santosa beach and relax and finally go clubbing and get back to the air port just in time for your flight. ;-) that is what I did once. Since you travel by subway the schedule is very predictable and you don’t risk missing your flight.
One the biggest drivers of user contribution to Wikipedia is clear mission statement they have. I have actually not read it and I am writing this blog in a airplane, but as a user and contributor to Wikipedia I have somehow got the message.
"Create a comprehensive and accurate free encyclopedia in 10 years."
Why Wikipedia has 10K+ active contributors?
Passionate contributors: They feel that they are participating in something that outlast their lives. When you add something there you are reasonable assured that it will outlive you. It is a way making history.
Large pool of authors: Everyone is a an expert. Everyone has something they are good at and want to pass that along. As individuals they may not be so smart but as a collective they are a genius.
Low barrier to entry to the author pool: The wiki collects and aggregates micro contribution for every users: In a successful and well maintained wiki you, as a contributor add what you can. You can forget about spelling grammar or style, if you have content and what to add it you can just dump it in. There will be others who clean it up and format it. If you are not an expert in a subject then you can contribute by simply formatting and editing. Just consuming the content is also a form of contribution. Page view statistics help authors focus their effort on a subset of content.