This is a tough question because most task management tools are geared towards collaboration. Since you are one person, I don't know of anything geared towards your situation.
Trac may be a reasonable fit for you -- it does task and project tracking, it is open source, but of course it is geared towards a larger operation.
When I last tried to use OpenBSD, package management was a big barrier to entry. In those days, I yearned for apt-get like ease to set updates and even distribution upgrades automatically. I noticed that OpenBSD added pkg_add several years ago, but I haven't really tried it in the enterprise. How is the package management system today? How easy is it to do hands-off administration of tens if not hundreds of these servers?
....fewer than 0.1% of comments on development mailing lists are sexist... what is the real "problem" that exists?
99.9% uptime isn't exactly a standard bearer for reliability in IT. 1 out of 1,000 comments are sexist? A dev list is about software development, right? Ostensibly the number should be near zero when excluding spam, etc. How many comments are on a dev lists per day? If it is 1000 per day, that would be one sexist remark every day.
Suppose the average person speaks 1,000 words in a day. If "only" one of those words is sexist -- is that not a "real problem"?
The whole denial issue about sexism/racism/etc is really quite simple. Institutions that believe they are magically immune from a cultural and society construct that is very old and ingrained are, as a matter of fact, in denial. The very nature of these ails is that only with concerted efforts against them is it possible to effectively mitigate their influence. FOSS has been conceited by the anonymity of the internet and lulled to believe that this has inoculated the community for society's ills. It is about time this discussion gets started in a serious way -- the road is long ahead.
Your first statement is true only if you recognize that Stalinism as "the economic model" was an outright and total perversion of communism, with almost no real resemblance to communism as Karl Marx had first proposed in The Communist Manifesto.
This is like saying the US economy has "almost no real resemblance" to the Adam Smith's wealth of nations, so it must not be "real" capitalism. How can one surmise that the written word of a philosopher in the 19th century is somehow more real or more authentic than an actual country that existed in the 20th century? A central tenet of Marx, by the way, is that empirical data trumps theory -- just don't tell this to Marxists!
Calling the Soviet states communists is about as accurate as claiming that the United States runs solely on The Federalist Papers
You have this backwards. Things that exist in real life are the best way to *define* theoretical terms or semantics. It is rather backwards to ignore what actually happened, and instead insist that the theoretical writings of someone long dead is somehow more "authentic" than the actual experience of over 100 million Soviet people.
You have made good points, but I think you have an incorrect conclusion. The Soviet Union succeeded as a nation, at times, *despite* its government.
WW2 is a pretty good example. The Soviet spy networks knew Hitler was poised to attack, yet Stalin was in denial. The officer purge, the destruction of the air force, etc, are historic military blunders. The sacrifice and loss in the first 6 months of the war were catastrophic. The sheer idiocy of "attack at any cost" reflected the poorest kind of strategic thinking. Now, this is to take *nothing* away from the Soviet military's accomplishment. I think the USSR played a hugely significant role in defeating Germany. The previous industrialization of the Urals was very fortunate for the Soviet Union, and while it could be in some part claimed as a victory for "central planning", it was incidental and not part of a strategic plan.
The Soviet Union certainly industrialized, but the government's role in this was very poor. The moment industrialization really picked up steam, what did the government do? "More pig iron", "increase quotas", etc. Steel would sit and rot, unused. Construction would be done just for the sake of building -- not actual productivity. Consider the space program. The government stopped efforts in the 1930s to really develop a program that had percolated up through brilliant scientists. By the 1950s, they pursued the effort for political reasons -- with heavy borrowing from German rocketry.
No doubt that the emphasis in sports, education, and health care were very successful investments. These are good examples of where the government did a good job, but I would still maintain this occurred *despite* the political system, not because of it. In other words, I agree it would be a gross oversimplification to call the Soviet Union a "failure". There were many bright spots and positive outcomes, to be sure. Yet, it is almost a tautology to say that the Soviet Union was, in sum, a catastrophic failure. It is really quite reasonable to say that by the mid-1960s the Soviet Union was crumbling.
The Soviet Union wasn't chugging along perfectly until Reagan showed up. The Soviet Union was falling apart as early as the mid-1960s. The economic model was fundamentally flawed. The Soviets never learned the lessons from Stalin's disastrous communist experiments: collectivization doesn't work.
In a typical Chinese critique, the classic failure of the Soviet Union is that Gorbachev attempted to liberalize the POLITICAL system before he properly liberalized the ECONOMIC system. The economic system was completely geared toward state interests (the definition of a planned economy)-- not the needs of the people. Meanwhile, the Chinese have managed to convert their economy over to capitalism in a somewhat managed fashion, while still largely stifling political reforms. With an economic system in place that adequately provides for the people, political reforms can follow in a somewhat controlled manner.
Many posters seem to be attempting to justify their "depression" as being somehow reflective of a more accurate world view. Firstly, I think most folks are actually expressing cynicism, and not depression. While external events may trigger depression, the source is internal -- lack of self-confidence, desire, hope for one's own future, etc. Cynicism, OTOH, is a pessimistic world view such that one can justify actions being meaningless in a world where everything is going to go wrong anyway.
Secondly, it is problematic to correlate ignorance with happiness, without a pretty shallow view of happiness. The concept of happiness itself is a pervasive problem, because it is presented as some obtainable ideal, when it is nothing of the sort. Happiness and sadness are a natural part of the ebb and flow of life, you can't miraculously obtain one without the capacity for the other being ever-present. It is far more useful to consider things from the point of view of contentment, or put another way, acceptance. Cynicism or optimism, for example, are rejections of the view that there is balance in the world, and instead posit some sort of universal constant towards one direction or the other. The problem, of course, is that their premise will at times not come to fruition, and significant distortions are necessary to continue to justify the world view.
In summary, depression and cynicism are not necessary states for intelligent people. They are certainly ever present phases, but think of this as an excuse for philosophical exploration. In other words, we get to these places because whatever constructs we had for a world view didn't quite work out. Time for reassessment, and another attempt.
This question can't be asked without the context of the institutional strategy. The poster mentions open source, but open source is not a strategy. It is a means to a particular end. Most universities today are focused on increasing student services through technology. Thus, it seems likely that the IT strategy for your institution should dove tail with student services goals. A portion of IT strategy could be basic infrastructure questions if they are big and important enough -- e.g. you need a new data center, you've neglected your infrastructure for X years and a complete overhaul is necessary, etc. Simply stated: figure out what your institutional strategy is, and you'll be able to create a meaningful and coherent IT strategy.
This article isn't particularly informative, especially in regards to areas where spending will be reduced. This isn't a very effective way to assess the state of security -- to do that it must be within the context of the industry/business, and preferably to IT in general. If budgets are generally being cut by 20%, then the fact that security is doing that is nothing special. Further, budget is only part of the picture: institutional priorities are also very important. How is the allocation of staff time changing? What kind of changes are going on in terms of institutional strategic planning?
IT complexity has increased over time. There is always this notion that IT is going to down size, but this isn't going to happen when a greater number of services are shifting to IT and while complexity of systems and integration continues to increase. Outsourcing creates the illusion that IT is "shrinking", but that is a misnomer: IT has actually increased in size, just not through some brick and mortar method. As an example, at our college we are moving to Google Apps for students. This hasn't replaced some in-house Office solution we created for students. It is a totally new feature. Sure, it is outsourced, but it has to integrate with our existing systems, etc. This has increased our responsibilities and services offerings. We did the same for a 24/7 helpdesk -- we outsourced, but it is an entirely new offering, so our size and services increased again.
When the complexity of IT systems plateaus, becomes commoditized, then IT staff will indeed experience some fundamental shifts. As it is now, for every system that is commoditized, two or three more have increased in complexity.
Sugar has had it share of issues, to be sure, but this notion that OLPC should be a hardware company is quite absurd. Thanks but no thanks -- hardware is a commodity that you can get from anywhere. It is the creation of innovative software, specifically tailored to children, that makes the device interesting or not.
This is an innovative approach, but the current implementation outlined on his website would not be effective for sections of the population and in some uses (e.g. in stores, etc). That said, this could be effectively deployed with an opt-in system and branded as an "online only" credit card.
That said, I would be more interested to see the math behind the "one time password" approach. How exactly does this system work? Does this require the card company to issue some code to vendors for each transaction? Interesting, but is that practical?
It seems wasteful. For example, the rovers provide very tangible benefits at relatively low cost and they managed to outlive their "useful" lives many times over. The benefits of the ISS don't seem as tangible, and the cost is very high. The struggle for a lay person like myself is that the notion of a human presence on a space station lends itself to the idea of a progressively longer arrangement. If Mir did it in 15 years, then ISS will do it in 30, for example. This provides some crude indication of a progression, improvement, such that bigger and more long lasting stations will continue into the future. In essence, this all seems to lead to a conclusion that ISS is not terribly ground breaking. It may instead by Mir version 1.5: continuing similar science without really stepping space exploration into the next phase.
I don't fully understand why useful objects in space are discarded into the atmosphere. Isn't it feasible to send them into space, either in an extremely high orbit or just give it enough inertia to keep traveling in open space? Is it really not worth the time/fuel/effort?
It seems odd that we can't keep a consistent, physical presence in space.
There are many and growing examples of school districts abandoning text books entirely. The basic premise is that K-12 textbooks fundamentally contain public knowledge -- the only thing that is proprietary is word choice and presentation, much of which is discarded by the teacher anyway. Thus, the first way to get beyond textbooks is to allow teachers the freedom and control to serve up their own contact.
Vail School District in Southern Arizona has developed a wonderful program called "Beyond Textbooks" that emphasizes teacher collaboration and curriculum sharing. This has countless ancillary benefits, all in addition to the most basic: saving countless dollars on textbook purchases.
I found it a bit surprising that the Touch was not updated. Technically I would think it is a non-issue, but I suppose they want to give the more lucrative iPhone the bump before the Touch gets the same thing. Its a shame -- I had been waiting a month to buy the Touch hoping it would get the same bump. Oh well.
Okay, I'll bite. No one has complained as yet -- I'll refrain from a spoiler -- but did anyone else note the physics problem involving a black hole and time dilation? The first time they did it, they got it within reason. Nice work. The *second* time this occurred, however, they missed it completely. Have we forgotten so soon that the entire premise of Andromeda was based on this very situation?:)
Fair enough, but I think it is fair to give them this space for a reboot. If you are going to start things fresh -- this is surely the best way to do it. We will really judge everything by ST:2 -- will they go for shaky cam action yet again? If so, the franchise will likely become tiresome and boring quite quickly.
Nonsense. At a community college students are more likely to be adult learners paying their own way and thus usually more motivated than the typical university student. Similarly, many universities have TAs teaching classes, while community colleges always have faculty teaching. Community colleges are dedicated to the fundamental ideals of non-profit education, which is not always the case in university settings where profit, research, sports, and other priorities can take center stage. While community colleges do not confer BA degrees, this is largely due to the lobbying groups of universities. They know full well that community colleges can provide a similar quality of instruction for *pennies on the dollar*, and they cannot compete. Thus, an ideal role for a community college is to serve students for the first two years of their BA program.
Certainly the university system has many strengths of their own, but don't mistake them for somehow all encompassing or being indicative of a loss in the community college system. While it may be easy to cast dispersions at our modern student population, the community college is uniquely situated to remediate many of the learning delays and general lack of quality education students receive in high school. Systemically teacher performance needs to become part of our education system at all levels.
Because the alternative was a short, dirty, uncomfortable, powerless existence inside a tin can where you play jump roulette.
The common civilian spent their lives huddled on cots, and served as slaves to the technology that kept them alive. There would be a great sense of freedom to make your own life apart from the caste of fixing computers, processing fuel, and eating algae all day.
They did not do justice to this idea -- much of the finale was very rushed -- but I think you've nailed it exactly. They could have shown shots of the masses in the fleet in cramped quarters, even conversations on other fleet ships: what now, etc.... they really could have played up the concept that the fleet had become slaves to technology. This would have been a quite compelling contradiction: while toasters had been our slaves, in so doing, we also became slaves to them. This could have been a central theme to the denouement.
In general, they would have been better served by making two different episodes: the final battle and earth. The latter was quite choppy, pieced together, and didn't really have a story or real meaning.
If we can disable a computer network instead of destroy it, we can retrieve valuable information from it later. We also will not need to rebuild it after the war, thus lowering the cost and decreasing the time required to stand up a new functional native government. We could also use some of the disabled resources during the war (once we have physical control of them) instead of shipping in our own equipment.
Very interesting. This seems like conventional warfare tactics superimposed over the communications infrastructure. I suppose the risk of sabotage (e.g. a poisoned router, etc) may be fairly similar to conventional sabotage of bridges, airports, etc. The strange thing is that these seem to be foreign concepts to our military. They seem mired in this idea of complete dominance, destruction, and overwhelming force. Perhaps this is part of the problem, since cyber war is the antithesis of such an approach. So how do we get there? Surely these folks can be convinced about the importance of communication infrastructure? Logistics demands an appreciation of communications, especially modern logistics! A reluctance to use capture equipment/resources may be an area where our over dependence on the so-called military industrial complex (outsourcing, contractors, etc) has become a strategic weakness.
In most countries, the civilian infrastructure and the military infrastructure are the same or overlap in so many places as to be almost the same. Disabling the civilian "internet" may also disable military networks
Really? That is a frightening concept. In this case, however, I'm not sure that retaining the communications gear is a helpful tactic. After all, we don't want our military communications on the internet! Granted, though, in the longer term this is the right thing to have in place for rebuilding commerce, etc, but I think this is a more difficult point to make.
Largely because of the United States Code... U.S.C. Title 10, Subtitle A, Part 3 (I think): Armed Forces, General Powers and Functions. Title 10 grants the Armed Forces the authority to commit potential "acts of war"...
Interesting. I suppose the CIA has, at times in the cold war, played hopscotch with that defining line. As you've indicated on separation of powers, there seems to be a noble ethic in the intent here. I wonder if cyber war is not similar to some CIA activities? The term is so broadly used I think it leads to some confusion, but it seems fair to break it down to information and infrastructure. We seem more or less established in the realm of information handling, so the discussion seems to be about infrastructure.
Cyber war seems to imply cyber attacks against, and protection of, the infrastructure. The curious thing here is that you have both a civilian and military infrastructure, and placement of cyber war seems contingent on these objectives. I'm not sure I understand the role of cyber attacks against military infrastructure. Attacks on military infrastructure would seem to fall into the category of "war". If so, it implies a state of affairs in what the authors refer to as "kinetic" warfare. In this event, I'm not sure I understand in what cases the US military in particular would be better served to wage war against military infrastructure through cyber rather than "kinetic" means, or put another way, how cyber attacks could augment current capabilities? Meanwhile, the civilian infrastructure question (e.g. internet) is interesting, I would tend to think of it in similar terms as an economic blockade or economic sabotage. It may not constitute an act of war since it can be done more or less covertly, and when overtly could be called a diplomatic stick as opposed to a military gun. Thus, from a legal point of view I would think that a "civilian" scope would be a more appropriate umbrella for any military subset.
The model is good in theory. In practice it runs into several problems (though sometimes it does work well):
Interesting. This is a good case for a separate service on the supposition that, as a general rule, you can't integrate geeks into the military. People have given specific examples to the contrary (submarine geeks, etc) -- but perhaps these are exceptions to the rule? I'm trying to understand this "cyber war" thing because if we are just talking about "cyber" means and ends -- then you don't have to have folks integrate with units, etc. A separate service or something outside the military is entirely feasible. If we are talking about a scope with all kinds of technical applications, then a separate service is a non-starter and complete integration is required.
The article did not address, but must address -- what the hell are we trying to achieve? Both the article and SignalFreq have identified what seem to be pretty serious personnel problems with geeks in the military, but are there other problems? Any discussion of a new service or a new approach requires a wide-reaching review -- a strategic review -- of all the issues and needs across the board. In order for that to happen, the issues have to be taken seriously by those most important. I wonder if that is the case.
This raises some interesting points. I've been an advocate of a separate branch for cyber war, but ironically this article has me thinking in a new direction. A former IT boss of mine used to say that in the military they take pride in the notion that if it is round you carry it, and if it is square you roll it. The article indicates this cultural problem, but isn't this a cultural pervasive in the very institution of the military? While different branches have different cultures, surely a non-kinetic warfare branch would truly be the odd one out. The military is capable of scientific rigor, certainly -- the US Army Corps of Engineers is a good example. Yet, we have all kinds of intelligence agencies under the department of defense umbrella where science is the modus operandi -- so why would cyber security go under the military, as opposed to the NSA, for example?
The military requires some degree of cyber warfare capability in the field, but I'm not sure it makes sense as the nexus of national defense efforts in the field. It further seems axiomatic that cyber security can't be reasonably split into our existing branches. This seems to be the crux of the issue: the military may not be sufficiently distinguishing operational needs from strategic needs. While each branch requires operational components, strategically the military cannot effectively pursue this goal.
I'm not convinced by the point in the article regarding the NSA. On the contrary, it almost seems like the NSA model is ideal: the military requires operational folks who rotate through the doors of the NSA to get schooled and then go out into the field. Meanwhile, I would think, the NSA is staffed by career civilian professionals who can not only devote the necessary strategic attention to cyber warfare, but can also train the military as necessary. The article seems to address an issue where military staff is used to augment an understaffed NSA. Since apparently military staff is rotated out too frequently, it is not an effective use of resources. From this description, at least, this problem seems minor in comparison to the issues of shoe horning geeks into the military.
Most heartening, however, is that these folks seem to really get it, at long last:
Recruiting ethical, trustworthy people is, of course, of paramount importance. In their formative years, many technically talented individuals make critical decisions that influence the direction of their life. In the hacking
community, perhaps the most important decision is whether or not to engage in illegal activity. By creating a cyber organization that is elite, complete with role models that junior members would want to emulate, we can recruit individuals before they make irreversible decisions that would eliminate their ability to serve their country.
If OLPC is considering truly open source hardware... why are they only considering ARM as an alternative architecture? How about MIPS?
There are a bunch of patents on the ARM architecture and ARM has been quite aggressive at shutting down open-source reimplementations in the embryonic stage.
Exactly. It is a bit contradictory, so it isn't clear exactly what they will open source. Keep in mind that their innovate display will be created by a different company (Pixel Qi), so what will be left of significance? OLPC is becoming quite curious: it laid off its Sugar developers, the innovators who created much of the hardware have left. Exactly what is OLPC now going to make of value?
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This is a tough question because most task management tools are geared towards collaboration. Since you are one person, I don't know of anything geared towards your situation. Trac may be a reasonable fit for you -- it does task and project tracking, it is open source, but of course it is geared towards a larger operation.
When I last tried to use OpenBSD, package management was a big barrier to entry. In those days, I yearned for apt-get like ease to set updates and even distribution upgrades automatically. I noticed that OpenBSD added pkg_add several years ago, but I haven't really tried it in the enterprise. How is the package management system today? How easy is it to do hands-off administration of tens if not hundreds of these servers?
....fewer than 0.1% of comments on development mailing lists are sexist ... what is the real "problem" that exists?
99.9% uptime isn't exactly a standard bearer for reliability in IT. 1 out of 1,000 comments are sexist? A dev list is about software development, right? Ostensibly the number should be near zero when excluding spam, etc. How many comments are on a dev lists per day? If it is 1000 per day, that would be one sexist remark every day.
Suppose the average person speaks 1,000 words in a day. If "only" one of those words is sexist -- is that not a "real problem"?
The whole denial issue about sexism/racism/etc is really quite simple. Institutions that believe they are magically immune from a cultural and society construct that is very old and ingrained are, as a matter of fact, in denial. The very nature of these ails is that only with concerted efforts against them is it possible to effectively mitigate their influence. FOSS has been conceited by the anonymity of the internet and lulled to believe that this has inoculated the community for society's ills. It is about time this discussion gets started in a serious way -- the road is long ahead.
Your first statement is true only if you recognize that Stalinism as "the economic model" was an outright and total perversion of communism, with almost no real resemblance to communism as Karl Marx had first proposed in The Communist Manifesto.
This is like saying the US economy has "almost no real resemblance" to the Adam Smith's wealth of nations, so it must not be "real" capitalism. How can one surmise that the written word of a philosopher in the 19th century is somehow more real or more authentic than an actual country that existed in the 20th century? A central tenet of Marx, by the way, is that empirical data trumps theory -- just don't tell this to Marxists!
Calling the Soviet states communists is about as accurate as claiming that the United States runs solely on The Federalist Papers
You have this backwards. Things that exist in real life are the best way to *define* theoretical terms or semantics. It is rather backwards to ignore what actually happened, and instead insist that the theoretical writings of someone long dead is somehow more "authentic" than the actual experience of over 100 million Soviet people.
You have made good points, but I think you have an incorrect conclusion. The Soviet Union succeeded as a nation, at times, *despite* its government.
WW2 is a pretty good example. The Soviet spy networks knew Hitler was poised to attack, yet Stalin was in denial. The officer purge, the destruction of the air force, etc, are historic military blunders. The sacrifice and loss in the first 6 months of the war were catastrophic. The sheer idiocy of "attack at any cost" reflected the poorest kind of strategic thinking. Now, this is to take *nothing* away from the Soviet military's accomplishment. I think the USSR played a hugely significant role in defeating Germany. The previous industrialization of the Urals was very fortunate for the Soviet Union, and while it could be in some part claimed as a victory for "central planning", it was incidental and not part of a strategic plan.
The Soviet Union certainly industrialized, but the government's role in this was very poor. The moment industrialization really picked up steam, what did the government do? "More pig iron", "increase quotas", etc. Steel would sit and rot, unused. Construction would be done just for the sake of building -- not actual productivity. Consider the space program. The government stopped efforts in the 1930s to really develop a program that had percolated up through brilliant scientists. By the 1950s, they pursued the effort for political reasons -- with heavy borrowing from German rocketry.
No doubt that the emphasis in sports, education, and health care were very successful investments. These are good examples of where the government did a good job, but I would still maintain this occurred *despite* the political system, not because of it. In other words, I agree it would be a gross oversimplification to call the Soviet Union a "failure". There were many bright spots and positive outcomes, to be sure. Yet, it is almost a tautology to say that the Soviet Union was, in sum, a catastrophic failure. It is really quite reasonable to say that by the mid-1960s the Soviet Union was crumbling.
The Soviet Union wasn't chugging along perfectly until Reagan showed up. The Soviet Union was falling apart as early as the mid-1960s. The economic model was fundamentally flawed. The Soviets never learned the lessons from Stalin's disastrous communist experiments: collectivization doesn't work.
In a typical Chinese critique, the classic failure of the Soviet Union is that Gorbachev attempted to liberalize the POLITICAL system before he properly liberalized the ECONOMIC system. The economic system was completely geared toward state interests (the definition of a planned economy)-- not the needs of the people. Meanwhile, the Chinese have managed to convert their economy over to capitalism in a somewhat managed fashion, while still largely stifling political reforms. With an economic system in place that adequately provides for the people, political reforms can follow in a somewhat controlled manner.
Many posters seem to be attempting to justify their "depression" as being somehow reflective of a more accurate world view. Firstly, I think most folks are actually expressing cynicism, and not depression. While external events may trigger depression, the source is internal -- lack of self-confidence, desire, hope for one's own future, etc. Cynicism, OTOH, is a pessimistic world view such that one can justify actions being meaningless in a world where everything is going to go wrong anyway.
Secondly, it is problematic to correlate ignorance with happiness, without a pretty shallow view of happiness. The concept of happiness itself is a pervasive problem, because it is presented as some obtainable ideal, when it is nothing of the sort. Happiness and sadness are a natural part of the ebb and flow of life, you can't miraculously obtain one without the capacity for the other being ever-present. It is far more useful to consider things from the point of view of contentment, or put another way, acceptance. Cynicism or optimism, for example, are rejections of the view that there is balance in the world, and instead posit some sort of universal constant towards one direction or the other. The problem, of course, is that their premise will at times not come to fruition, and significant distortions are necessary to continue to justify the world view.
In summary, depression and cynicism are not necessary states for intelligent people. They are certainly ever present phases, but think of this as an excuse for philosophical exploration. In other words, we get to these places because whatever constructs we had for a world view didn't quite work out. Time for reassessment, and another attempt.
Disclaimer: I'm a Daoist. ;p
This question can't be asked without the context of the institutional strategy. The poster mentions open source, but open source is not a strategy. It is a means to a particular end. Most universities today are focused on increasing student services through technology. Thus, it seems likely that the IT strategy for your institution should dove tail with student services goals. A portion of IT strategy could be basic infrastructure questions if they are big and important enough -- e.g. you need a new data center, you've neglected your infrastructure for X years and a complete overhaul is necessary, etc. Simply stated: figure out what your institutional strategy is, and you'll be able to create a meaningful and coherent IT strategy.
This article isn't particularly informative, especially in regards to areas where spending will be reduced. This isn't a very effective way to assess the state of security -- to do that it must be within the context of the industry/business, and preferably to IT in general. If budgets are generally being cut by 20%, then the fact that security is doing that is nothing special. Further, budget is only part of the picture: institutional priorities are also very important. How is the allocation of staff time changing? What kind of changes are going on in terms of institutional strategic planning?
When the complexity of IT systems plateaus, becomes commoditized, then IT staff will indeed experience some fundamental shifts. As it is now, for every system that is commoditized, two or three more have increased in complexity.
Sugar has had it share of issues, to be sure, but this notion that OLPC should be a hardware company is quite absurd. Thanks but no thanks -- hardware is a commodity that you can get from anywhere. It is the creation of innovative software, specifically tailored to children, that makes the device interesting or not.
This is an innovative approach, but the current implementation outlined on his website would not be effective for sections of the population and in some uses (e.g. in stores, etc). That said, this could be effectively deployed with an opt-in system and branded as an "online only" credit card. That said, I would be more interested to see the math behind the "one time password" approach. How exactly does this system work? Does this require the card company to issue some code to vendors for each transaction? Interesting, but is that practical?
Besides, why *not* burn it in the atmosphere?
It seems wasteful. For example, the rovers provide very tangible benefits at relatively low cost and they managed to outlive their "useful" lives many times over. The benefits of the ISS don't seem as tangible, and the cost is very high. The struggle for a lay person like myself is that the notion of a human presence on a space station lends itself to the idea of a progressively longer arrangement. If Mir did it in 15 years, then ISS will do it in 30, for example. This provides some crude indication of a progression, improvement, such that bigger and more long lasting stations will continue into the future. In essence, this all seems to lead to a conclusion that ISS is not terribly ground breaking. It may instead by Mir version 1.5: continuing similar science without really stepping space exploration into the next phase.
I don't fully understand why useful objects in space are discarded into the atmosphere. Isn't it feasible to send them into space, either in an extremely high orbit or just give it enough inertia to keep traveling in open space? Is it really not worth the time/fuel/effort? It seems odd that we can't keep a consistent, physical presence in space.
There are many and growing examples of school districts abandoning text books entirely. The basic premise is that K-12 textbooks fundamentally contain public knowledge -- the only thing that is proprietary is word choice and presentation, much of which is discarded by the teacher anyway. Thus, the first way to get beyond textbooks is to allow teachers the freedom and control to serve up their own contact. Vail School District in Southern Arizona has developed a wonderful program called "Beyond Textbooks" that emphasizes teacher collaboration and curriculum sharing. This has countless ancillary benefits, all in addition to the most basic: saving countless dollars on textbook purchases.
I found it a bit surprising that the Touch was not updated. Technically I would think it is a non-issue, but I suppose they want to give the more lucrative iPhone the bump before the Touch gets the same thing. Its a shame -- I had been waiting a month to buy the Touch hoping it would get the same bump. Oh well.
Okay, I'll bite. No one has complained as yet -- I'll refrain from a spoiler -- but did anyone else note the physics problem involving a black hole and time dilation? The first time they did it, they got it within reason. Nice work. The *second* time this occurred, however, they missed it completely. Have we forgotten so soon that the entire premise of Andromeda was based on this very situation? :)
Fair enough, but I think it is fair to give them this space for a reboot. If you are going to start things fresh -- this is surely the best way to do it. We will really judge everything by ST:2 -- will they go for shaky cam action yet again? If so, the franchise will likely become tiresome and boring quite quickly.
Nonsense. At a community college students are more likely to be adult learners paying their own way and thus usually more motivated than the typical university student. Similarly, many universities have TAs teaching classes, while community colleges always have faculty teaching. Community colleges are dedicated to the fundamental ideals of non-profit education, which is not always the case in university settings where profit, research, sports, and other priorities can take center stage. While community colleges do not confer BA degrees, this is largely due to the lobbying groups of universities. They know full well that community colleges can provide a similar quality of instruction for *pennies on the dollar*, and they cannot compete. Thus, an ideal role for a community college is to serve students for the first two years of their BA program.
Certainly the university system has many strengths of their own, but don't mistake them for somehow all encompassing or being indicative of a loss in the community college system. While it may be easy to cast dispersions at our modern student population, the community college is uniquely situated to remediate many of the learning delays and general lack of quality education students receive in high school. Systemically teacher performance needs to become part of our education system at all levels.
Here is the corridor map. The rest of the details can be found here.
They did not do justice to this idea -- much of the finale was very rushed -- but I think you've nailed it exactly. They could have shown shots of the masses in the fleet in cramped quarters, even conversations on other fleet ships: what now, etc.... they really could have played up the concept that the fleet had become slaves to technology. This would have been a quite compelling contradiction: while toasters had been our slaves, in so doing, we also became slaves to them. This could have been a central theme to the denouement.
In general, they would have been better served by making two different episodes: the final battle and earth. The latter was quite choppy, pieced together, and didn't really have a story or real meaning.
Very interesting. This seems like conventional warfare tactics superimposed over the communications infrastructure. I suppose the risk of sabotage (e.g. a poisoned router, etc) may be fairly similar to conventional sabotage of bridges, airports, etc. The strange thing is that these seem to be foreign concepts to our military. They seem mired in this idea of complete dominance, destruction, and overwhelming force. Perhaps this is part of the problem, since cyber war is the antithesis of such an approach. So how do we get there? Surely these folks can be convinced about the importance of communication infrastructure? Logistics demands an appreciation of communications, especially modern logistics! A reluctance to use capture equipment/resources may be an area where our over dependence on the so-called military industrial complex (outsourcing, contractors, etc) has become a strategic weakness.
Really? That is a frightening concept. In this case, however, I'm not sure that retaining the communications gear is a helpful tactic. After all, we don't want our military communications on the internet! Granted, though, in the longer term this is the right thing to have in place for rebuilding commerce, etc, but I think this is a more difficult point to make.
Interesting. I suppose the CIA has, at times in the cold war, played hopscotch with that defining line. As you've indicated on separation of powers, there seems to be a noble ethic in the intent here. I wonder if cyber war is not similar to some CIA activities? The term is so broadly used I think it leads to some confusion, but it seems fair to break it down to information and infrastructure. We seem more or less established in the realm of information handling, so the discussion seems to be about infrastructure.
Cyber war seems to imply cyber attacks against, and protection of, the infrastructure. The curious thing here is that you have both a civilian and military infrastructure, and placement of cyber war seems contingent on these objectives. I'm not sure I understand the role of cyber attacks against military infrastructure. Attacks on military infrastructure would seem to fall into the category of "war". If so, it implies a state of affairs in what the authors refer to as "kinetic" warfare. In this event, I'm not sure I understand in what cases the US military in particular would be better served to wage war against military infrastructure through cyber rather than "kinetic" means, or put another way, how cyber attacks could augment current capabilities? Meanwhile, the civilian infrastructure question (e.g. internet) is interesting, I would tend to think of it in similar terms as an economic blockade or economic sabotage. It may not constitute an act of war since it can be done more or less covertly, and when overtly could be called a diplomatic stick as opposed to a military gun. Thus, from a legal point of view I would think that a "civilian" scope would be a more appropriate umbrella for any military subset.
Interesting. This is a good case for a separate service on the supposition that, as a general rule, you can't integrate geeks into the military. People have given specific examples to the contrary (submarine geeks, etc) -- but perhaps these are exceptions to the rule? I'm trying to understand this "cyber war" thing because if we are just talking about "cyber" means and ends -- then you don't have to have folks integrate with units, etc. A separate service or something outside the military is entirely feasible. If we are talking about a scope with all kinds of technical applications, then a separate service is a non-starter and complete integration is required.
The article did not address, but must address -- what the hell are we trying to achieve? Both the article and SignalFreq have identified what seem to be pretty serious personnel problems with geeks in the military, but are there other problems? Any discussion of a new service or a new approach requires a wide-reaching review -- a strategic review -- of all the issues and needs across the board. In order for that to happen, the issues have to be taken seriously by those most important. I wonder if that is the case.
This raises some interesting points. I've been an advocate of a separate branch for cyber war, but ironically this article has me thinking in a new direction. A former IT boss of mine used to say that in the military they take pride in the notion that if it is round you carry it, and if it is square you roll it. The article indicates this cultural problem, but isn't this a cultural pervasive in the very institution of the military? While different branches have different cultures, surely a non-kinetic warfare branch would truly be the odd one out. The military is capable of scientific rigor, certainly -- the US Army Corps of Engineers is a good example. Yet, we have all kinds of intelligence agencies under the department of defense umbrella where science is the modus operandi -- so why would cyber security go under the military, as opposed to the NSA, for example?
The military requires some degree of cyber warfare capability in the field, but I'm not sure it makes sense as the nexus of national defense efforts in the field. It further seems axiomatic that cyber security can't be reasonably split into our existing branches. This seems to be the crux of the issue: the military may not be sufficiently distinguishing operational needs from strategic needs. While each branch requires operational components, strategically the military cannot effectively pursue this goal.
I'm not convinced by the point in the article regarding the NSA. On the contrary, it almost seems like the NSA model is ideal: the military requires operational folks who rotate through the doors of the NSA to get schooled and then go out into the field. Meanwhile, I would think, the NSA is staffed by career civilian professionals who can not only devote the necessary strategic attention to cyber warfare, but can also train the military as necessary. The article seems to address an issue where military staff is used to augment an understaffed NSA. Since apparently military staff is rotated out too frequently, it is not an effective use of resources. From this description, at least, this problem seems minor in comparison to the issues of shoe horning geeks into the military.
Most heartening, however, is that these folks seem to really get it, at long last:
Exactly. It is a bit contradictory, so it isn't clear exactly what they will open source. Keep in mind that their innovate display will be created by a different company (Pixel Qi), so what will be left of significance? OLPC is becoming quite curious: it laid off its Sugar developers, the innovators who created much of the hardware have left. Exactly what is OLPC now going to make of value?