Planning for the Future

Planning for the future is not just some idea from the modern world, it is what Jesus tells his followers they must do in Saint Luke Chapter 14. He tells them they must be as sensible as a builder constructing a tower or a king facing a war.

“For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, saying, "this fellow began to build and was not able to finish.” Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? If he cannot, then, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace.”

Like the builder and the king in Jesus’ teaching, we at perbit need to sit down and think.

Amazon AWS baut Vorsprung aus

Amazon owns the cloud computing market so thoroughly, and is so far ahead in market share and features, that it's "game over" for other contenders, much the same way that Google owns the internet search ad market today.

 

Most people see the cloud as a race between market leader Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, with other players like IBM also in the mix.

Werner Vogels, Amazon CTO says the others are years behind.

 

"If you look at other cloud providers in the market, there's quite a few of them still sort of in the phase where AWS was five, six years ago — in 2010 — at the moment we were still much more focused on the infrastructure side of things than the sort of rich collection of services."

"This is not a winner-takes all market," Vogel says. "I think given the changes we've seen in the last 10 years it's hard to predict which are the players that will be left in 10 years from now, or who will be the main players in the market. I definitely think AWS will be there and have a prominent role in that world."

"Do I think there will be less and less data centers over time?" Vogels says. "Yes, absolutely."

Poppy wins

Cats are faster runners than humans:

Not today though, maybe tomorrow. (She knows best!)

What have we become?

Every day, we change. We move (slowly) toward the person we'll end up being. Are you more generous than the you of five or ten years ago? More confident? More willing to explore?

Have you become more brittle? Selfish? Afraid?

Grumpy and bitter isn't a place we begin. It's a place we end up. Do we intentionally choose the optimistic path? Are we eagerly more open to change and possibility?

Every day we make the decisions that build a culture, an organization, a life. Since yesterday, since last week, since you were twelve, have you been making deposits or withdrawals from the circles of supporters around you?

People don't become selfish, hateful and afraid all at once. They do it gradually.

Wat haste jemacht mit dein’ Leben?

Am 16. August 1956, so lese ich im Filmlexikon, wurde in Köln  „Der Hauptmann von Köpenick“ mit Heinz Rühmann in der Hauptrolle uraufgeführt. Ich bleibe deshalb daran hängen, weil für mich in diesem Film eine der besten schauspielerischen Leistungen geboten wird, die ich aus dem Kino kenne.

Der Schuster Wilhelm Voigt ist nach seiner Haft bei seiner Schwester und deren Mann Friedrich untergekommen.  Nachdem er von einer Beerdigung zurück ist, sinniert er mit seinem Schwager über das Leben und sagt:

 „Und denn, denn stehste vor Gott, dem Vater, ….und der fragt dir, ins Jesichte: Willem Voigt, wat haste jemacht mit deine‘ Leben. Und da muss ick sagen: Fußmatten, muss ick sagen, die hab ick jeflochten im Jefängnis. …. Det sachste vor Gott, Mensch. Aber der sacht zu dir: Jeh weck, sacht er! Ausweisung! Sacht er. Dafür hab ick dir det Leben nicht jeschenkt! Sacht er. Det biste mir schuldig. Wo is et? Wat haste mit jemacht?“

Ich habe diese Szene schon oft gesehen. Rühmann spielt sie so intensiv, dass ich bis heute immer einen Kloß im Hals verspüre und am liebsten in den Film hinein klettern möchte um den kleinen Mann an den Schultern zu packen und zu sagen: „ Nee Willem Voigt, so ist Gott nicht. Der gibt dir deine Chance, auch wenn dein Leben bis heute völlig verkorkst verlaufen sein sollte. Der lässt dich nicht fallen, du hast die Chance auf deine Aufenthaltserlaubnis.“

Ja ich weiß, dass das reine Glaubenssache ist. Und die Bibel hat zahlreiche Belege für den strafenden und richtenden Gott, aber genauso auch für den verzeihenden und gütigen. Von einer Grundüberzeugung komme ich nicht los: vor Gott ist der Mensch mehr wert als die Summe seiner Leistungen. Und wenn ich davon ausgehen kann, dann fällt es mir leichter, mein Leben in die Hand zu nehmen und etwas daraus zu machen. Davon entbindet mich nämlich auch der Glaube an den gütigen Gott nicht, den Vater, der den verlorenen Sohn in den Arm nimmt und wieder in sein Haus führt.

Wilhelm Voigt verlässt das Haus seines Schwagers mit den Worten: „So knickerig werd ich nicht vor meinen Schöpfer treten. Ick werd noch wat machen mit meim’ Leben…“
Ist vielleicht auch gar kein so schlechtes Motto für uns all, jeden Tag.
-Wolfgang Drießen

Not many saw Pokemon coming..

Marc Benioff posted something on Twitter that's worth quoting.

"No one I know predicted the @Pokemon/AR phenomena. That's what I love about our industry: You never know what's next."

That's right!

That's like something I used to say as the web was first taking root in 1996. None of the titans of the software industry saw it coming. They're never as smart as they imagine they are.

Orange is the new black

.. wird immer besser, ich kann Season 5 kaum erwarten.

"Nearly every moment of the fourth season of “Orange Is the New Black” feels refracted in a small sequence in the finale, a bubble of joy floating up through tragedy. In a flashback, Poussey Washington (Samira Wiley) is visiting friends in New York, and ends up taking an F train to Dumbo, blissful and exhausted. Sitting next to her, a white guy with dreads plays a steel drum. An Asian mother falls asleep; when her little boy opens her wallet to take some cash, Poussey catches the eye of a middle-aged man in a turban. They smile, sharing the secret. Poussey watches Wall Street suits offering a flask to two girls, then gazes at an older black woman reading Michael Chabon, an interracial couple kissing, a pregnant woman, some jocks.

For anyone who lives in New York City, this is a familiar vision of cosmopolitan heaven—a weave of strangers, open and curious. The city that Poussey gets lost in isn’t perfect. She’s a young black woman, and when her phone is stolen, and she asks for help, white men brush her off. But, for a few hours, her life is full of jittery serendipity: she meets a drag queen named Miss Crimson Tide; she sees a dopey Roots cover band; she goes to a club where participants follow instructions that flash on the wall (Kiss, Dance, Share); she ends up hitching a bike ride from a fake monk who’s a member of Improv Everywhere. It’s hell to watch, though. The subway car is the inverse of the justice system that will swallow Poussey up and, years later, kill her."

And the season manages to end with the individual. In the finale’s last shot, set on the Brooklyn pier where Poussey will soon be arrested, she smiles at the camera, breaking the fourth wall. It’s as if she were taking her place in the show’s opening credits, a montage of the faces of real-life ex-prisoners, staring at us.

-by EMILY NUSSBAUM, New Yorker.