Today, I’m going to write about an equation. I’ll try to make it easy to follow, but it’s still stats and graphs. Stay tuned and I’m convinced it will be worth your while, because in my opinion, it’s the most important equation in cloud computing. It’s what drives your market, your customers, and your burn rate.

If you build a traditional data center platform for your application, you worry about three variables: The amount of traffic to your site, your capacity to handle that traffic, and the user experience they get, such as latency. The equation looks like this:

User experience = Traffic / Capacity

As traffic increases, user experience gets worse and delay goes up. This is because each visit to your site consumes resources on your infrastructure, and some users wind up waiting for the app to respond. Networks get full; databases encounter record locking; message queues back up; and so on. Ultimately, some of your visitors have a lousy experience.

On-demand computing platforms fundamentally change how you deal with this, because as far as you’re concerned, they have infinite capacity.

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Ever sent a mail you regret?

Google has been introducing a wide range of features lately. Their GMail labs are proposing all kinds of enhancements. But this one proves just how mainstream the web has become: Mail Goggles.

A pun on Beer Goggles, the plug-in asks you skill testing questions when you might be drunk.

There’s some controversy over Google’s product development approach. On the one hand, Google has taken new approaches — simple search engines, an entirely new approach to email (remember when labels were new?) But at the same time, the company has started sharecropping development, by letting people submit plug-ins, GMail enhancements, and so on.

That’s a tricky line to walk. On the one hand, you want to keep things simple. On the other hand, you want to reap the wisdom of the crowds and keep innovating. While new features keep the geeks happy, Street View confuses many of the Google Maps faithful.

So the real question is: Google Goggles might work, but if it’s too hard to set up, only the math nerds will use it. And they can do arithmetic unconscious. How about tracking my shaky mouse movements, or using my webcam to check for eye redness? Now that’s easy to use.

A few posts back, Alistair wrote about Human 2.0, focusing on sensory immersion, augmented reality. and bridging the gap between the human and the screen. These techniques are only half of the Human 2.0 equation -  they modify the environment – the inputs – not the human body itself.

Human 2.0 is about breaking human performance barriers, both mental and physical, by modifying the human body and environment. Think transhumanism. Biogerontology. Life extension. Brain hacking. Body hacking. Even baby hacking.

I’ve been interested in these fields for more than a decade, to the point that I have my own EEG at home so I can read my brain waves and learn to modify them at will. Some people have closets full of golf clubs they never use. Mine is full of soliton lasers, cerebro-electric stimulators, light/sound goggles, micro pulse generators, and FIR-LED neuron growth stimulators. I can’t wait to get my own Emotiv headset.

Smart drugs? Tried them all (and I won’t say if I take them now). I’m a board member of a non-profit called the Smart Life Forum that meets once a month in Palo Alto. (Third Thursday of the month – check it out; I’ll be there…) SmartLife’s advisors include leading anti-aging physicians and Steve Fowkes, author of “Smart Drugs II,” and head of the Cognitive Enhancement Research Institute. Hormone testing? Been there. SPECT scan? Done that. Ayahuasca? Check. You get the point. Ray Kurzweil definitely gets the point.

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