Three Layers of the Cloud

We hear about the cloud and cloud computing.  But did you know?…

“The ‘cloud of clouds’ has three distinct layers.  The outer one called ‘software as a service’ (SaaS), includes web-based applications such as Gmail, Google’s e-mail service, and Salesforce.com, which helps firms keep track of their customers….Going one level deeper, there is ‘platform as a service,’ (PaaS), which means an operating system living in the cloud.  Such services allow developers to write applications for the web and mobile devices.  Offered by Google, Salesforce.com and Microsoft, this market is also fairly easy to measure, since there are only a few providers, and their offerings have not really taken off yet….The most interesting layer—the only one that really deserves to be called ‘cloud computing,’ say purists—is infrastructure as a service (IaaS).  IaaS offers basic computing services from number crunching to data storage, which customers can combine to build highly adaptable computer systems.”  Market leaders are GoGrid, Rackspace and Amazon Web Services.  Amazon is by far the market leader, owning about 80 to 90% of the current capacity.  The cloud is estimated by Forrester Research to grow to $56 billion in 2020 from about $1 billion in 2010.           

from Threes, Chapter 8, “Threes in Business and Technology” 

Read more about the Cloud in my new Kindle mini-e-book, Threes in Business and Technology, that’s available now at Amazon.

Three Graces

Grace is a decidedly spiritual notion.  “There but for the grace of God go I” is a thought often repeated that’s been attributed to the English evangelical preacher John Bradford upon seeing criminals being led to the gallows.  To Christians grace means mercy or forgiveness.  Grace carries a sense of divinity.  Often it is not merited or earned, just given and possessed.  Hindus think of grace as a requirement to be obtained before spiritual self-realization.  Grace summons calm and intention.  “God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things that can be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish one from the other” has been attributed to theologian Reinhold Niebuhr.  The saying is called by its common name, the Serenity Prayer, and occupies the heart of many a troubled soul.    

Grace fascinates for its many dimensions.  It goes well beyond the spiritual meanings.  You can think of physical grace or gracefulness, which is an ability to move around effortlessly.  You can think of social grace.  In Greek mythology the Charites, known as The Three Graces, were the goddesses of joy, charm and beauty.  They were named Aglaia (Splendor), Euphrosyne (Mirth), and Thalia (Good Cheer).  The Graces presided over banquets, dances, and all other pleasurable social events, and brought joy and goodwill to both gods and mortals.   In Roman mythology they were known as the Gratiae, which connotes gratitude.  With grace and gratitude derived from the Latin gratus, the meaning of grace can be extended to mean a sense of gratitude or gratefulness.  “Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.  It turns what we have into enough, and more.  It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity.  It turns problems into gifts, failures into success, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events.  Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow,” writes Melodie Beattie.               

from Threes, Chapter 4, “Threes in Religion and Mythology” 

Read more about the Three Graces in my new Kindle mini-e-book, Threes in Religion and Mythology, that’s available now at Amazon.

The New Big Three Economies

Until just a few years ago the largest national economies existed in the developed world.  United States, Japan and Germany (The Big Three) achieved the largest gross domestic product (GDP) in 2000.  “Ten years ago rich countries dominated the world economy, contributing around two-thirds of global GDP after allowing for differences in purchasing power.  Since then that share has fallen to just over half.  In another decade it could be down to 40%.  The bulk of global output will be produced in the emerging world,” wrote The Economist in 2010.  In the last 20 years or so the developed and developing worlds have undergone a re-positioning with the explosion of rapidly expanding, formerly developing economies in Brazil, Russia, India and China, which are known collectively by the acronym BRIC.  In fact, Goldman Sachs’ projections suggest China will jump into the number two position in the new Big Three list by 2020 and will become number one, surpassing the United States by 2050, and India will become the third largest economy as measured by GDP unless something cataclysmic derails its unprecedented growth, which by some measures approaches 10% annually.   

Three forces will dictate China’s rise…demography, convergences and “gravity.” 

from Threes, Chapter 6, “Threes in Economics and Finance” 

Also included in my new Kindle mini-e-book, Threes in Economics and Finance, that's available now.

Thomas Jefferson’s Big Three

As cultures evolved, thinkers found answers to perplexing problems and concepts in groupings of three ideas or principles, first in science, then in social systems.  The concept of gravity remained a challenge until philosopher, astronomer and physicist Isaac Newton declared in the late 1600s there were three laws of motion.  More than 300 years later there are still three laws of motion.  No one has uncovered a fourth. 

Attorney, statesman and philosopher Francis Bacon wrote about inductive reasoning in the pursuit of scientific knowledge.  He formalized a method for investigating the natural world 400 years ago.  The method that’s still used today begins with the collection of data from which comes the formation of a hypothesis to explain the data.  Finally, the third step is the testing of the hypothesis, which if it holds up under scrutiny can become a theory.  He “argued that although philosophy at the time used the deductive syllogism to interpret nature, the philosopher should instead proceed through inductive reasoning from fact to axiom to law.”  Induction, deduction and analogy are considered to be the three forms of classical reasoning.       

Former U.S. president, statesman, inventor, attorney and author Thomas Jefferson, borrowing from British philosopher and physician John Locke, who followed in the empiricist tradition of Francis Bacon, declared “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” as those “unalienable rights” in the U.S. Declaration of Independence.  Jefferson drafted the Declaration at age 33.  He was the third U.S. president.  His writing inspired French citizens to seek their own independence using the rallying cry of “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité.”  Jefferson called John Locke one of his three heroes.  The other two were Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton.    

from Threes, Chapter 1, “The Wonder of Threes”

Also included in my new Kindle mini-e-book, Threes in Government and Politics, available now from Amazon.