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White House Names Google's Megan Smith As CTO
itwbennett writes that, as expected, The White House has named long-time Google executive Megan Smith as the government's new CTO, in charge of improving technology and the use of data across agencies. Smith most recently served as vice president at Google's tech lab, Google[x]. She previously served as CEO of PlanetOut, helped design early smartphone technologies at General Magic and worked on multimedia products at Apple Japan in Tokyo. She holds bachelor's and master's degrees in mechanical engineering from MIT, and just might be, as noted in a previous Slashdot post, the first US CTO worthy of the title. Also on Thursday, the White House named Alexander Macgillivray, a former general counsel and head of public policy at Twitter, as deputy U.S. CTO.
improving technology and the use of data across agencies
That is the exact opposite of what we need right now.
I love how when someone is appointed to a high position in the power pyramid, and the press release always lists their education credentials, as if they actually matter for the position. Puh-lease.
Just imagine how scary the government would be if they knew what they were doing. They'd almost be Google.
improving technology and the use of data across agencies
That is the exact opposite of what we need right now.
The NSA and the security industrial complex don't need stinking laws and the approval of the public to aggregate and track you. They're already doing it. I doubt this role will help them (or hinder them). What integrated data could provide is more effective programs and less paperwork, and possibly more data.gov APIs.
Worrying about the CTO "improving things the wrong way" is the same as worrying about sharing your bank password with your spouse while storing your password file in cleartext on a malware infested desktop.
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As CTO - isn't she going to have the vision and leadership to design the best team under her? Why would they build an organization for her when that is both her job and one of the big pieces of the magic that she brings to the table?
It is half technology chops - and half understanding and effectively using others with bad-ass technology chops that makes great technical leaders like her great. Do the elected (aka non-badasses) not understand how people who have to deliver amazing results, in terms of actual performance - their betters, work? If not then it is less of a surprise how crappy the US, as a whole is doing, in terms of ongoing rate of increase in amazing results.
So Obama should logically be the CEO, appointed by private board members ?
"Mechanical Engineering" has basically no common grounds with Computer Engineering/Software Engineering/Computer Science. She may be a good CEO, but the job of a CTO is still an engineering one (if often abused) and she has not what it takes there. No argument that her predecessors where even less qualified.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Why does it have to be yet another goo"don't be evil"gler? You mean to say that the only alternative with some actual tech-ish background would've been someone from facebook maybe?
I think that this whole CTO thing is still more fad than that is has any substance. Maybe she can add some real substance, maybe not. But it's still a sad show. Then again, most of US politics is. How come the land of the free, home of the brave, lets their fearless leaders run the country, and the world, ever more into the ground? To the point that it really doesn't matter which party you pick, the end result is the same.
As if we don't already have enough corporate executives running the white house.
She only fits this "job" as far as politics is concerned. There is no CTO of the federal government position, they just invented it, so they could appoint her to it so she fits as well as anybody could who has a position invented for them.
Take a look at her Wikipedia page and it's pretty clear what's going on here.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I miss the days of hiring people with talents like running a horsey show. /snark
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
Even if she doesn't have the academic background (I agree with others that ME is close enough to CE/EE to pass muster), she certainly has the experience.
Finding God in a Dog
"One nation, under Google+"
The faggots are gonna complain no matter what decision is made.
Dig a bit and figure out why they are doing this. This is about politics, not fixing anything more than the next election.
I don't think anyone has the time to dig for every bit of information that someone on the internet insists exists. I don't suppose you have any links, do you? ...or perhaps you could just elaborate? Otherwise I think you're going to completely fail to spread whatever message it is you are trying to spread.
A good point. Pro-straight? Destroyed. Pro-gay? Straight to the top. It's no wonder people call liberals evil. Everything they do is inverted.
The problem I have with the appointment has nothing to do with the gender of the appointee, and in fact my worst fear is that she will be very good at her job. Imagine what would happen if someone successfully integrated all of major government computer systems. The ATF could easily bring up records compiled by the FBI, the IRS could readily examine information gathered by state police in California, etc. If all of the illegally gathered information was fully available to any police or government agency the citizens of the U.S. would become the most spied upon people the world has ever seen. There would be virtually nothing unknown to anyone associated with the state. These people already do as they please most of the time, without regard to their legal powers or the U.S. Constitution, and people have become so used to it that hardly an eyebrow is raised.
Until the forces who wish to turn our country into a series of large corporate profit centers are overcome, it's better if we have a clueless CTO. Imagine what it would be like if the current senate and congress wasn't nearly clueless. Assuming they had the same agendas, it would be a magnitude of order more horrendous than it already is.
So 'Female' is the new "Black" at Obama's 'White' House.
Ah. Degrees from 'Online' Institutions! Just Who Hacked Who in this!
Of course it is - after all, the Obama Administration has been railing about the gender gap when it's leading the way in keeping the gender gap alive... Another case of our President being "do as I say, not as I do".
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
But creating a few sinecures will improve the numbers!
Since at least the 1970s we've had to spend a lot of time on computers to check designs, and whether it's patch cables, FORTRAN, python or even matlab, and even if they are short it's still writing programs to run on computers.
"No common ground" my arse. I moved into dealing with computers full time after I spent more time wrangling a cluster than simulating heat transfer on it.
First an inept CIO position now a CTO position. I don't want the US government smarter about systems and data. They're already fucking things up nicely right now as it is. Some agencies with better technology and training could really wreak havoc; like the IRS. Screw that.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
I have no problem giving the job to the most qualified person, even if that person is a woman. But she's not the most qualified person! You know how I know? Because she's a woman! She is clearly an AFFIRMATIVE ACTION pick. She's no good. All she knows about is mechanical engineering (aside from her years of IT experience)! I'm so sick of all this AFFIRMATIVE ACTION! Again, I'd love to give the job to a qualified woman. But every woman who gets any job gets it because of AFFIRMATIVE ACTION!
Thank you for this succinct recap of much of this Slashdot discussion thread.
You did forget to mention how the position was "just invented" for her. (And her two predecessors, err...)
Deleting all my Google-based data.
Maybe you need to embrace the inevitable and start shagging people of the same sex then. You can work out your anger issues by acknowledging that your raging homophobia is in fact driven by a fear of your own sexuality, and at the same time, you can get a job instead of hiding in mommy's basement hoping that the world will go away.
Basically an M&A due diligence apparatchik. After all MOST patent lawyers also have technical degrees. Doesn't make them scientists though.
Stop covering for your closeted robosexual tendencies, transistor tweaker!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I wonder how often she will hear that?