To further your "decision maker" argument. I'm responsible for a budget where we regularly buy a large number of mac computers every year. Everywhere possible, we have held off on mac purchases. In some areas, we are actively planning to move to PCs. While I am a life long (30 years) Mac user, I find myself frequently advocating against the Mac precisely because of what Chuq articulates. Apple is an enormously successful company, and they have found success in walking in IBM-like footsteps. They make products that appeal to the mass rather than to the edge, and they decide on aggregate data rather than vision. It's going to continue to work really great for Apple for a long while to come.
No one in the market has figured this out yet. There is a zygote of users out there that are hungry for better solutions but who have nowhere to turn to. No one out there is really 'disrupting' Apple. But it is a solvable problem, and someone will make it so. When someone does, I'll be moving my circles in their direction.
If a trade war occurs with China, consumer prices will significantly inflate. Tech company stocks will fall significantly, as a large amount of gear is sourced internationally. For those with an interest to keeping your 401(k) safe, I suspect the first thing is to consider which companies source to China, as opposed to countries that use Taiwan, Korea, Japan, etc. Hmm. I wonder if anyone has made just such a list; e.g. "How to prepare your 401(k) for a trade war with China"!
My opinion of Hayden just bumped up by quite a bit. It is common sense (not to mention historically rigorous and logically sound) to suggest we need strong encryption and that back doors are a terrible idea. But, what a victory to hear a public official take this position. So much more of this needs to be happening!
I think what we are seeing here is progress, albeit slow and with a long road ahead. Their stated purpose of having a dialogue is, in itself, an important and positive step forward. Comey's remark on skepticism being fair, but cynicism being problematic, is reasoned and nuanced. I think this is a good sign that the intelligence community is starting to grapple with the need for open discussion, and is making a case towards that end.
This illustrates the moral depravity of the author's viewpoint entirely.
We aren't fighting the system if we say "The bankers steal from us, so let's steal as they do." On the contrary, it is a clarion call to become evil like them. It is an injustice and tragedy that those who that participated in the financial crisis have not been held to account, but the tragedy becomes catastrophe if we follow in their footsteps.
As others indicate, it is certainly possible to overcome this challenge. Practically, I wonder about cost to scale. The cost efficiency argument is cost to build out and maintain the solution versus the labor cost of manual changes.
Security hasn't been mentioned, and is rather important. Principally, I would want to know about (a) the regulatory requirements and (b) the risk of whatever security controls you would put in place (e.g. the loss potential) versus the value gained.
All of that said, if I owned a company doing what you described, I would certainly investigate options six ways from Sunday to find a better method, and I would suspect a better one than what you described is possible.
The US tax code for expats is presently highly problematic. There is good cause to have little faith in near term remedy.
The decision on citizenship is considerably long term. My dad gave me advice as a teenager that has been the most valuable guiding light in my life: in whatever decisions you make, tend towards solutions that open more doors of future opportunity than they close.
Us citizenship doesn't really limit opportunities, but it certainly has present day liabilities. Renouncing citizenship is a relatively inexpensive option. Gaining citizenship is considerably more expensive.
The core components of information security are often misunderstood. The triad of confidentiality, integrity and availability are important to consider. There is a symbiosis between these three components. For example, if confidentiality and availability is highly restrictive, can we really be confident in the integrity of the data with so few people who have such limited access?
The old adage, being so tragically expressed here in real world terms, that the only "secure" computer is locked in a vault at the bottom of an ocean belies the very nature of security. For data to be useful and meaningful, it must be accessible to the people who need it when they need it. Failure to properly deliver accessibility will consequently build pressure on confidentiality (e.g. it will be shared inappropriately) and/or data integrity (e.g. the data will grow stale/irrelevant/etc).
A typewriter is a medieval instrument for data security. Because they have rockets, they might as well start building castle walls. They are, in essence and by design, surrendering. Sun Tzu would be proud of such an adversary that could create this result. Masterful.
Perhaps one of the more important works in the geek lexicon of art. The book and the film were very inspirational for me. For the first time as a child, I understood and could relate to that thing we have called pattern recognition. The moment in the film at the chalkboard was etched into my mind -- that that is is that that that is not is not is that it it is. Understanding the differences between people, and understanding them in their depths without glorification, is such a positive thing.
We are lucky to have art such as this and for all you old folks (over 30, naturally), ask the geek kids you work with or know to read the book or see the film. They may never have heard of it!
It doesn't matter, it's just math(s), the end result is that we will never see that laser and we will never be able to reach that galaxy either.
Infinity and void are incredibly powerful concepts, but I don't think "never" is particularly useful, especially when describing a universe for which our body of knowledge is so incredibly limited.
From every description I've heard of "dark energy" it sounds like a kind of place-filler variable for something--as in, "This equation only works if we put in X, but we have no idea what X is."
Physicists brought us the dark energy hypothesis, not mathematicians. This is an important distinction: dark energy is not used to solve an equation, rather it is a phenomenon that we can indirectly observe.
Black holes, Dark energy, Zero point energy -- there are so many nascent concepts that hint at great disruption to our theories but that have not had the time to sort themselves out. Humanity rigorously worked on the concept of gravity for several hundred years before we had our Einstein.
Geometry is the antithesis of infinity. He will be "aspiring" to be a number theorist until he is ready to look at numbers beyond the constraints of Geometry.
Well said. The finding of the article is interesting: student's that use laptops tend to attempt to take verbatim notes. The laptop isn't the issue, this is a problem of how to properly take notes. Class time is best used for comprehension rather than rote learning. To that end, an effective use of a laptop during class would be to look things up as the professor talks about them. As stated above, notes are best saved for after class to be taken during study time.
I just have one important point of caution for you on this statement: "The two atomic bombings killed a quarter million people. On its own, that's horrifying. In the context of the Second World War, that's a rounding error."
While relativity is important in a great many things, it is problematic to use from an ethical point of view. Many atrocities were committed by all sides in WW2. In fact, all sides committed mass atrocities of some kind or another: the fire bombings being particularly awful. This was the reality of WW2 and has given terrible clarity to the reality of what "total war" means.
My point here is simply this: the atomic bombings of Japan were absolutely horrific tragedies. It is an event that stands alone in human history when so many civilians have been killed in an instant. It stands in rare company by the magnitude of civilians that slowly died a truly barbaric death in the hours following. I don't think it is possible to ethically justify total war, and by consequence, no substantive part of it. Thus, while total war was necessary for all sides to wage, all sides had to take unethical actions. I think we would agree on this point: that being ethical in total war would be self-defeating in fact: it would completely ignore the reality of what total war is. This is, simply, where I think people get mixed up about the bombings. They happened because it was total war. But they were not a rounding error on any scale: they were an awful event in our human history that we can only hope is never emulated.
You are challenged by a common struggle for IT professionals who start technical and move up through management. When moving up from within, it is very important to challenge yourself to let go of the old role and start anew. Your starting point when you hire someone should be that you trust and have confidence in them to run the shop under your direction. By retaining any sort of privileges, you would undercut that confidence and place your relationship with your IT staff on crutches.
Develop your abilities to hire well and trust your hiring decisions. Be willing to take a chance: become uncomfortable with your new role. You should have reservations, not about departing from your old role however, but instead about all the changes and unfamiliarity that come with moving to the "top floor". Good luck. It sounds like you are in a great position with a bright future.
As the founder of modern information theory Claude Shannon so eloquently stated: the enemy knows the system (Kerckhoffs's principle). To the question being asked: it is problematic when the information assets are published, like the wikileaks exposure of diplomatic cables. In this instance, however, it is the system being exposed, and not particular information assets (at least to my limited knowledge). Thus, as an organization I think the worry is not about the system you use, but instead about your information assets. There is no simple answer to protecting information assets from insiders short of saying: defense in depth.:)
It is a challenging proposition: force customers to rent and provide no option to own. This is a natural fit for services, but becomes rather odd for a commodity. It is hard to understand how, in the consumer market, a company can successfully force a customer to pay for a service that they don't use: if I only use Photoshop in March and June, why on earth should I pay for April and May? Subscription models work very well in business, particularly in large organizations, but this will be interesting to watch unfold in the consumer market.
Interesting comments. I find that one of the more common sources of conflict and inefficiency in the work place relates to disconnected expectations. At a cursory level, it sounds like you find yourself in highly bureaucratic organizations but that the style and value of your work may be constructively disruptive. Setting clear and consistent expectations is challenging: it may take several attempts and sometimes fails all together. FWIW.
Your post is very well written and thoughtful. Your introspection and social consciousness are strong indicators that you will find the right path.
I tend to believe that arrogance is a maturation stage in the development process of individuals with a pronounced strength. Like any other stage of development, some take longer than others to grow out of it. Those who persist the longest require an awfully exceptional strength, or far more likely, a growing ecosystem of isolation and denial.
I think humility, in a sense, distinguishes truly bright individuals from those who are merely clever. The acquisition of knowledge is useful, but true understanding requires comprehension of scope and context. Understanding the outer limits of a thing necessarily leads to humility: the expansive nature of most heady subjects is such that no individual can master the whole. Thus, the path to humility is a holistic one, where the path to arrogance requires a myopic view of the world.
My expectation is that an SSD used by a desktop computer is most likely to indicate issues when it is being heavily used. In that sense, an imaging process is a good event.
Slashdot Mirror
To further your "decision maker" argument. I'm responsible for a budget where we regularly buy a large number of mac computers every year. Everywhere possible, we have held off on mac purchases. In some areas, we are actively planning to move to PCs. While I am a life long (30 years) Mac user, I find myself frequently advocating against the Mac precisely because of what Chuq articulates. Apple is an enormously successful company, and they have found success in walking in IBM-like footsteps. They make products that appeal to the mass rather than to the edge, and they decide on aggregate data rather than vision. It's going to continue to work really great for Apple for a long while to come.
No one in the market has figured this out yet. There is a zygote of users out there that are hungry for better solutions but who have nowhere to turn to. No one out there is really 'disrupting' Apple. But it is a solvable problem, and someone will make it so. When someone does, I'll be moving my circles in their direction.
If a trade war occurs with China, consumer prices will significantly inflate. Tech company stocks will fall significantly, as a large amount of gear is sourced internationally. For those with an interest to keeping your 401(k) safe, I suspect the first thing is to consider which companies source to China, as opposed to countries that use Taiwan, Korea, Japan, etc. Hmm. I wonder if anyone has made just such a list; e.g. "How to prepare your 401(k) for a trade war with China"!
My opinion of Hayden just bumped up by quite a bit. It is common sense (not to mention historically rigorous and logically sound) to suggest we need strong encryption and that back doors are a terrible idea. But, what a victory to hear a public official take this position. So much more of this needs to be happening!
I think what we are seeing here is progress, albeit slow and with a long road ahead. Their stated purpose of having a dialogue is, in itself, an important and positive step forward. Comey's remark on skepticism being fair, but cynicism being problematic, is reasoned and nuanced. I think this is a good sign that the intelligence community is starting to grapple with the need for open discussion, and is making a case towards that end.
This illustrates the moral depravity of the author's viewpoint entirely.
We aren't fighting the system if we say "The bankers steal from us, so let's steal as they do." On the contrary, it is a clarion call to become evil like them. It is an injustice and tragedy that those who that participated in the financial crisis have not been held to account, but the tragedy becomes catastrophe if we follow in their footsteps.
Security hasn't been mentioned, and is rather important. Principally, I would want to know about (a) the regulatory requirements and (b) the risk of whatever security controls you would put in place (e.g. the loss potential) versus the value gained.
All of that said, if I owned a company doing what you described, I would certainly investigate options six ways from Sunday to find a better method, and I would suspect a better one than what you described is possible.
The US tax code for expats is presently highly problematic. There is good cause to have little faith in near term remedy. The decision on citizenship is considerably long term. My dad gave me advice as a teenager that has been the most valuable guiding light in my life: in whatever decisions you make, tend towards solutions that open more doors of future opportunity than they close. Us citizenship doesn't really limit opportunities, but it certainly has present day liabilities. Renouncing citizenship is a relatively inexpensive option. Gaining citizenship is considerably more expensive.
Beautifully stated.
The core components of information security are often misunderstood. The triad of confidentiality, integrity and availability are important to consider. There is a symbiosis between these three components. For example, if confidentiality and availability is highly restrictive, can we really be confident in the integrity of the data with so few people who have such limited access?
The old adage, being so tragically expressed here in real world terms, that the only "secure" computer is locked in a vault at the bottom of an ocean belies the very nature of security. For data to be useful and meaningful, it must be accessible to the people who need it when they need it. Failure to properly deliver accessibility will consequently build pressure on confidentiality (e.g. it will be shared inappropriately) and/or data integrity (e.g. the data will grow stale/irrelevant/etc).
A typewriter is a medieval instrument for data security. Because they have rockets, they might as well start building castle walls. They are, in essence and by design, surrendering. Sun Tzu would be proud of such an adversary that could create this result. Masterful.
Perhaps one of the more important works in the geek lexicon of art. The book and the film were very inspirational for me. For the first time as a child, I understood and could relate to that thing we have called pattern recognition. The moment in the film at the chalkboard was etched into my mind -- that that is is that that that is not is not is that it it is. Understanding the differences between people, and understanding them in their depths without glorification, is such a positive thing.
We are lucky to have art such as this and for all you old folks (over 30, naturally), ask the geek kids you work with or know to read the book or see the film. They may never have heard of it!
D'oh!
Fair enough, but speak for yourself. I am going to live forever. :)
It doesn't matter, it's just math(s), the end result is that we will never see that laser and we will never be able to reach that galaxy either.
Infinity and void are incredibly powerful concepts, but I don't think "never" is particularly useful, especially when describing a universe for which our body of knowledge is so incredibly limited.
Math allows you to go to the centre of the Milky Way and back in a day....
Corrected that for you.
From every description I've heard of "dark energy" it sounds like a kind of place-filler variable for something--as in, "This equation only works if we put in X, but we have no idea what X is."
Physicists brought us the dark energy hypothesis, not mathematicians. This is an important distinction: dark energy is not used to solve an equation, rather it is a phenomenon that we can indirectly observe.
Black holes, Dark energy, Zero point energy -- there are so many nascent concepts that hint at great disruption to our theories but that have not had the time to sort themselves out. Humanity rigorously worked on the concept of gravity for several hundred years before we had our Einstein.
Geometry is the antithesis of infinity. He will be "aspiring" to be a number theorist until he is ready to look at numbers beyond the constraints of Geometry.
Well said. The finding of the article is interesting: student's that use laptops tend to attempt to take verbatim notes. The laptop isn't the issue, this is a problem of how to properly take notes. Class time is best used for comprehension rather than rote learning. To that end, an effective use of a laptop during class would be to look things up as the professor talks about them. As stated above, notes are best saved for after class to be taken during study time.
I think you have made a good, reasoned argument.
I just have one important point of caution for you on this statement: "The two atomic bombings killed a quarter million people. On its own, that's horrifying. In the context of the Second World War, that's a rounding error."
While relativity is important in a great many things, it is problematic to use from an ethical point of view. Many atrocities were committed by all sides in WW2. In fact, all sides committed mass atrocities of some kind or another: the fire bombings being particularly awful. This was the reality of WW2 and has given terrible clarity to the reality of what "total war" means.
My point here is simply this: the atomic bombings of Japan were absolutely horrific tragedies. It is an event that stands alone in human history when so many civilians have been killed in an instant. It stands in rare company by the magnitude of civilians that slowly died a truly barbaric death in the hours following. I don't think it is possible to ethically justify total war, and by consequence, no substantive part of it. Thus, while total war was necessary for all sides to wage, all sides had to take unethical actions. I think we would agree on this point: that being ethical in total war would be self-defeating in fact: it would completely ignore the reality of what total war is. This is, simply, where I think people get mixed up about the bombings. They happened because it was total war. But they were not a rounding error on any scale: they were an awful event in our human history that we can only hope is never emulated.
You are challenged by a common struggle for IT professionals who start technical and move up through management. When moving up from within, it is very important to challenge yourself to let go of the old role and start anew. Your starting point when you hire someone should be that you trust and have confidence in them to run the shop under your direction. By retaining any sort of privileges, you would undercut that confidence and place your relationship with your IT staff on crutches.
Develop your abilities to hire well and trust your hiring decisions. Be willing to take a chance: become uncomfortable with your new role. You should have reservations, not about departing from your old role however, but instead about all the changes and unfamiliarity that come with moving to the "top floor". Good luck. It sounds like you are in a great position with a bright future.
As the founder of modern information theory Claude Shannon so eloquently stated: the enemy knows the system (Kerckhoffs's principle). To the question being asked: it is problematic when the information assets are published, like the wikileaks exposure of diplomatic cables. In this instance, however, it is the system being exposed, and not particular information assets (at least to my limited knowledge). Thus, as an organization I think the worry is not about the system you use, but instead about your information assets. There is no simple answer to protecting information assets from insiders short of saying: defense in depth. :)
How eloquent and poignant. Well stated.
It is a challenging proposition: force customers to rent and provide no option to own. This is a natural fit for services, but becomes rather odd for a commodity. It is hard to understand how, in the consumer market, a company can successfully force a customer to pay for a service that they don't use: if I only use Photoshop in March and June, why on earth should I pay for April and May? Subscription models work very well in business, particularly in large organizations, but this will be interesting to watch unfold in the consumer market.
Interesting comments. I find that one of the more common sources of conflict and inefficiency in the work place relates to disconnected expectations. At a cursory level, it sounds like you find yourself in highly bureaucratic organizations but that the style and value of your work may be constructively disruptive. Setting clear and consistent expectations is challenging: it may take several attempts and sometimes fails all together. FWIW.
Your post is very well written and thoughtful. Your introspection and social consciousness are strong indicators that you will find the right path.
I tend to believe that arrogance is a maturation stage in the development process of individuals with a pronounced strength. Like any other stage of development, some take longer than others to grow out of it. Those who persist the longest require an awfully exceptional strength, or far more likely, a growing ecosystem of isolation and denial.
I think humility, in a sense, distinguishes truly bright individuals from those who are merely clever. The acquisition of knowledge is useful, but true understanding requires comprehension of scope and context. Understanding the outer limits of a thing necessarily leads to humility: the expansive nature of most heady subjects is such that no individual can master the whole. Thus, the path to humility is a holistic one, where the path to arrogance requires a myopic view of the world.
My expectation is that an SSD used by a desktop computer is most likely to indicate issues when it is being heavily used. In that sense, an imaging process is a good event.