tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-155718572024-03-07T03:25:50.149-05:00Concept ExploreKnowledge Discovery, Politics, Religion, Philosophy, Systems, Software, Architecture Theory and PracticeConceptualizerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06975112476307005006noreply@blogger.comBlogger114125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15571857.post-10250708338516693692016-12-11T02:22:00.002-05:002017-01-20T17:54:02.760-05:00Psy Ops, Information Warfare, and Cyber: The Weaponization of Social, Internet, and Mass Media<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: white;">Over the last few decades we have seen the global rise of new forms of psychological and information warfare. The goals of these operations are essentially the same; to make some part of the population of your adversary believe some information and/or doubt/question other information. Information that they receive through an information channel; to influence that population.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">Most people in a majority of nations get their information or news from some form of electronic source or channel. Most of these sources are now connected to the internet or a network in some way. These information channels are vulnerable because of these connections. They may be vulnerable to direct manipulation through hacking and consequent leaking and/or directly changing content. Or they may be vulnerable through more subtle indirect manipulation through the introduction of misinformation.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">The later type of manipulation would be like an enemy soldier putting on one of your side's uniforms and sneaking into your trenches to spread false rumors (information). Rumors like "Our unit is almost out of ammunition" or "the enemy is much (larger/smaller) than our command is telling us". Except that the misinformation we are talking about here is going out over social media, on fake news sites, through false videos, and by all manner of combinations of these channels. In this context the enemy soldier may not even be a real person but rather a bot or a bot-network program designed to mimic a human being online submitting comments, posting stories, uploading videos or other content as well as links to all of the same.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">In addition, spreading ideologies, conspiracy theories, and propaganda explicitly has never been so proliferate. These may pass explicit or implicit operational directives to followers thus literally acting as part of an adversaries command and control.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">The most dangerous aspect of all of this information warfare is in its Psy Ops potential to cause a significant part of the adversaries population to doubt the truth or be unsure of what to believe. Even if they don't get a population to wholeheartedly believe what they are pushing through information warfare tactics, if they cause a population to loose the ability to discern truth among information sources or to not believe in their own media's relative objectivity, or their government's legitimate claims then the enemy has won. Also if an adversaries information warfare tactics cause a population, government and/or media to become continual distracted this may be enough to consider the operations a success.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">In other cases a government or established media may enable or amplify the effect of an adversary's information warfare tactics by themselves not being authentic, truthful, and/or transparent. Or by reacting to or concentrating on an adversary's misinformation payload instead of exposing and addressing the tactics, the machinations behind the tactics, the strategy and possible aims of the adversary.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white;">We must be able to tell what information is true. This involves trust. Therefore, governments, credible journalistic media organizations, and social media firms must find ways to establish trust frameworks that allow people to verify the veracity of the information that they communicate without violating free speech, freedom of expression, and freedom of the press.</span></div>
Conceptualizerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06975112476307005006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15571857.post-14775072410311933002015-11-12T23:30:00.001-05:002015-11-13T00:15:44.449-05:00Why Progressive Taxes are FairDifferent taxation approaches as regressive, proportional, and progressive involve different concepts of fairness. What is fair? We all pay the same? We all pay an equal share if we can? We all pay based on the benefit we get from the system?<br />
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Progressive schemes often rely partially on a definition of fairness that somehow involves an individual’s benefit from an economy such that those that earn more or benefit more from an economy are to pay more because the economy and the state that protects and supports it, benefits them more and makes their increase possible.<br />
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On the other hand, proportional schemes rely on the assumption that equal percentages of income are equal and therefore that the value of money in terms of quantity is linear. In other words $100 is 100 times more valuable than $1 but is this so?<br />
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It is not so. The existence of wholesale pricing is evidence that the value of money in terms of quantity is not linear. For example, one can buy 12 cans of soda for $6, 50 cents per can, but if one buys one can alone the price will be roughly $1, $12 for 12 cans individually. Higher quantities of money buy exponentially more goods and/or services than smaller quantities. The value of individual monetary units, dollars whatever, increases exponentially with quantity.<br />
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Therefore, leaving out deductions, exemptions, loopholes, and such, progressive taxes are the most fair form of taxation scheme because the higher value of larger quantities of money held or earned by individuals is taxed at a higher rate commensurate with its higher value added.<br />
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If I am incorrect, why?<br />
<br />Conceptualizerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06975112476307005006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15571857.post-59718808109680424532015-05-05T22:16:00.000-04:002015-05-06T14:28:46.604-04:00Counter-Intelligence and The Minority ReportAre we expecting the intelligence community, law enforcement, and homeland security to predict the future like the "Pre-Cogs" in "The Minority Report" predicting future-crime?<br />
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What other types of crimes would we ever expect the government to be able to foretell? Theft? Assault? I don't expect them to be able to predict any of it. So why do we expect them to be able to read the future and know when some individual is going to go radical and start killing or hurting people?<br />
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No automated system or very intelligent system will any time soon be able to predict the future for us no matter how much data it can access. If it was possible right now then people would be using it to make money in the stock market or to make some other financial gain however systems that involve humans do not always behave rationally, sometimes behave chaotically, and therefore cannot be fully predicted. And when systems do get close to being able to predict things with some coarse level of detail then often those involved learn to game that system to their own ends essentially nullifying the conclusions drawn from it.<br />
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And if we ever do get a system that can predict the future, won't any actions taken based on it change the future? And if that future is changed such that what was predicted does not come to pass then was the prediction wrong? Temporal paradoxes? What??<br />
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I'm not saying that we shouldn't try to catch terrorists and criminals, we most definitely should. However, relying on foreknowledge may not be the right answer. maybe all we can do is try to discourage those that might want to do harm by being prepared and vigilant and by fighting our adversaries ideas and beliefs with the ideas and beliefs we hold true in the free world.Conceptualizerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06975112476307005006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15571857.post-12862625408419386942015-01-30T00:26:00.000-05:002015-01-30T22:47:30.782-05:00Forget Robots, What About My Own Personal DroneAmazon has it backwards. Instead of them using drones to deliver packages to me, just tell my drone where to pickup the packages. Imagine, without all the pesky logic concerning airspace crowding and drones bumping into each other, if we all had our own personal drones to run errands for us, to go forth, like ahead in traffic, to gather intelligence for us.<br />
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Forget something at work, no problem, send your drone back to get it.<br />
Wondering why traffic is all jammed up ahead of you on the freeway, no problem, send your drone on ahead to feed video back to your car.<br />
Live event that you can't get to, send your drone to beam back a live stream.<br />
And so on and so on.<br />
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MIT Tech Review has a page dedicated to Drones: <a href="http://spectrum.ieee.org/robotics/aerial-robots" target="_blank">here</a>Conceptualizerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06975112476307005006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15571857.post-46752440644760587872015-01-15T21:02:00.000-05:002015-01-15T21:05:51.852-05:00Failed States Are Civilization's TumorsIf nations are not or cannot successfully be "nation builders" or in the business of nation building then surely the United Nations should be.<br />
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The world cannot afford any longer to leave areas open to lawlessness and barbarism simply to let them some day become civilized and safe. As failed states, failing states, and areas without any law and order; without any government continue to grow, the UN must begin to consider itself taking on the duty and responsibility of helping the people in those areas to build legitimate states.<br />
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This will not be simple, cheap, or quick but the world pays the price for doing nothing with these areas as terrorists use them for safe haven. These areas have become tumors in the world that continually metastasize, spreading the disease of death, violence, hate, and suffering throughout the rest of the world.<br />
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Any new territories that come from such nation building efforts as well as every other nation should at a minimum accept and adhere to the <a href="http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/" target="_blank">The Universal Declaration of Human Rights</a><br />
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For a list ranking all states by multiple factors in terms of stability see <a href="http://ffp.statesindex.org/rankings-2013-sortable" target="_blank">THIS</a> page. </div>
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<br />Conceptualizerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06975112476307005006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15571857.post-68491758560656794892015-01-03T22:29:00.001-05:002015-01-03T22:29:29.646-05:00Organizations Are Made Of People And People Are Not Machines Treating organizations like machines and therefore people like parts in a machine is a recipe for failure though some of these efforts may marginally succeed due to other factors or simply by chance.<br />
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Talent is not ubiquitous and some talents cannot be taught to some individuals.<br />
Some people are NOT replaceable.<br />
Good processes and best practices alone do not equate to success.<br />
Some teams do not gel because some people do not get along or are not compatible. <br />
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There is no magic recipe of processes, procedures, rules, hierarchies, capabilities, functions, and/or methodologies for organizational success that works with just any group of people.<br />
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Organizations act as conduits that focus the will, energy, talent, strengths, and weaknesses of groups of individuals toward some goal or set of goals through the leadership of some individuals.<br />
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There is nothing wrong with good processes, procedures, rules, or methodologies but they are adopted and put into action by people within the the context of many unwritten and unspoken human and interpersonal processes, procedures, rules, hierarchies, and methodologies both conscious and subconscious that we all learn to live with.<br />
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<br />Conceptualizerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06975112476307005006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15571857.post-22705437251726066682014-12-20T11:20:00.002-05:002014-12-20T11:20:28.907-05:00Spring Framework as a Form of Embrace, Extend, Extinguish Whether planned or not, premeditated or otherwise, the Java Spring Framework effectively followed/follows an "Embrace, extend, and extinguish" path.<br /><br />From Wikipedia: also known as "Embrace, extend, and exterminate",<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish#cite_note-2">[2]</a> is a phrase that the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Justice">U.S. Department of Justice</a> found<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish#cite_note-3">[3]</a> and was used internally by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft">Microsoft</a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish#cite_note-4">[4]</a> to describe its strategy for entering product categories involving widely used standards, extending those standards with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprietary_software">proprietary</a> capabilities, and then using those differences to disadvantage its competitors.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0ZyjwGCxONPMumH42bvjiOW_wcIlVMShiY2BEc6x3DEgu1nIdOSH1lHbWVNzAMGVu6q1zNpBUQSwztNt8cgTaESH4OEYIGXi8nkFQ7N2twqN3u2TtAcf-3BOC2YYHYNARqPY9/s1600/lava-flow-photography-6.jpg"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0ZyjwGCxONPMumH42bvjiOW_wcIlVMShiY2BEc6x3DEgu1nIdOSH1lHbWVNzAMGVu6q1zNpBUQSwztNt8cgTaESH4OEYIGXi8nkFQ7N2twqN3u2TtAcf-3BOC2YYHYNARqPY9/s1600/lava-flow-photography-6.jpg" /></a><br />The strategy<br /><br />The strategy's three phases are:<br />Embrace: Development of software substantially compatible with a competing product, or implementing a public standard.<br />Extend: Addition and promotion of features not supported by the competing product or part of the standard, creating interoperability problems for customers who try to use the 'simple' standard.<br />Extinguish: When extensions become a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_facto_standard">de facto standard</a> because of their dominant market share, they marginalize competitors that do not or cannot support the new extensions.<br /><br /><br />This can also apply to open source projects as with the Java Spring Framework. Spring originally embraced the J2EE standard for the purpose of "fixing" its shortcomings by extending the standards using its own annotations and following its "convention over configuration" tactic. The framework followed this tactic instead of working to change the standard until Spring built applications were so far from being compatible with standard Java Enterprise framework that those shops which embraced it could not afford to not continue to use it and the tools built to support it. Then Spring was touted as "cutting edge" while those that stuck with the standard were backward. <br /><br /><br /><b><i><u><span style="font-size: large;">Anytime a tool dictates design such that it becomes required for further changes and future design, you are trapped. You are then the tool. </span></u></i></b><br /><div>
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Many Libertarian and Conservative economic views hinge on the assumption that wealth can be created. It is said as one simple proof that since wealth can indeed be destroyed, that it can also be created. <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/canon/2014/11/25/incentivizing-investors-what-crowdfunding-supporters-really-want-back/" target="_blank">Here</a> is one article on this viewpoint.<br />
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Many Socialist and Liberal economic views hinge on the assumption that wealth is a limited pie that cannot be made bigger. It is said that economics is a zero-sum game, when one gains wealth others must necessarily loose wealth. <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/jun/02/only-banks-can-create-wealth" target="_blank">Here</a> is one article on this viewpoint.<br />
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It is plain that land IS a limited resource. Natural resources are used up but new natural resources are also discovered however it is plain that over all time natural resources ARE limited simply because the earth is a physical thing and it does not make more of itself.<br />
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But other things of value are all around us that are created and destroyed. Value or wealth is added to the economy or created. However if we add value or create wealth we are essentially increasing the supply of value or valuable things and services. If those additions represent a net gain and if we hold the supply of money, cash etc., constant then it seems logical that the value of money would gradually decrease as the supply of valuable commodities increased unless we increase the supply of money with the supply of value.<br />
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Conversely if we simply increase the money supply without increasing the supply of value in the economy then we should see inflation and it should take more money to buy less such that money is worth less.<br />
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Therefore, IMHO wealth CANNOT be created without a corresponding creation of more money without causing deflation.<br />
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So to summarize,<br />
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If wealth is created by individuals or companies and therefore the total value of the economy is increased but the money supply is kept the same or decreased then you will have deflation, more things are competing for the same or less of an amount of currency.<br />
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If wealth is created by individuals or companies and therefore the total value of the economy is increased and the money supply is increased proportionally then you will have neither inflation nor deflation but more things and more money.<br />
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If wealth is held constant and the money supply is decreased then you will have deflation.<br />
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If wealth is held constant and the money supply is increased then you will have inflation.<br />
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If wealth is destroyed by individuals or companies and therefore the total value of the economy is decreased but the money supply is kept the same or increased then you will have inflation, less things are competing for the same or more of an amount of currency.<br />
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If wealth is destroyed by individuals or companies and therefore the total value of the economy is decreased and the money supply is decreased proportionally then you will have neither inflation nor deflation but less things and less money.<br />
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The question then is what is required to create wealth? Who has the means, abilities, initiative and opportunity to create wealth?<br />
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And who controls the money supply?<br />
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And do the answers to those questions equate to a "fair" system for all?<br />
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What are your thoughts?<br />
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<br />Conceptualizerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06975112476307005006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15571857.post-74701173396401195582014-12-05T19:53:00.000-05:002014-12-05T19:53:09.755-05:00Live Where The Food Is! World Hunger, Logistics, and PoliticsAn article in the latest National Geographic on Food states that the worlds farmers produce enough food to feed every human being on earth roughly 2868 calories per day, 768 calories more than the recommended 2100 calories per day by the World Food Programme. So why is there still hunger in the world? Why do approximately 40 Million people per year die of hunger and close to 1 Billion suffer some adverse effects from nutritional shortcomings?<br />
<br /> We know why: <br /><ul>
<li>War </li>
<li>Lack of infrastructure </li>
<li>Weather </li>
<li>Natural disasters </li>
<li>Government corruption </li>
<li>Lack of leadership </li>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC3INT5e1YT4DC9uGVAAA9Nc2ArOzvBaKaqfGKmRnGgqHlYcYCwJ7oxjzpHh5aOGdCQ9UwrDQiXBC7KAlxUjqLJ0WdnsbZdJyqG-BFfgZ_UHyRhFzr0hBwZhrCTWPG7ovJrGXE/s1600/goodfood.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC3INT5e1YT4DC9uGVAAA9Nc2ArOzvBaKaqfGKmRnGgqHlYcYCwJ7oxjzpHh5aOGdCQ9UwrDQiXBC7KAlxUjqLJ0WdnsbZdJyqG-BFfgZ_UHyRhFzr0hBwZhrCTWPG7ovJrGXE/s1600/goodfood.jpg" height="192" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<br />Besides these reasons there is one more. In the areas of the world where we have more than enough we keep some people out. We maintain what we have by limiting the numbers of people and types of people we allow into our lands. We take care of our own. Nothing wrong with that in terms of survival. It is a fact. But most of us probably believe in more than just survival of the fittest. So we try to help by giving to those nations that have less. Problem is the problems listed above. <br /><br />Comedian Sam Kinison had a famous rant about hunger:<br /><br />"You want to help world hunger? Stop sending them food. Don't send them another bite, send them U-Hauls. Send them a guy that says, "You know, we've been coming here giving you food for about 35 years now and we were driving through the desert, and we realized there wouldn't BE world hunger if you people would live where the FOOD IS! YOU LIVE IN A DESERT!! UNDERSTAND THAT? YOU LIVE IN A FUCKING DESERT!! NOTHING GROWS HERE! NOTHING'S GONNA GROW HERE! Come here, you see this? This is sand. You know what it's gonna be 100 years from now? IT'S GONNA BE SAND!! YOU LIVE IN A FUCKING DESERT! We have deserts in America, we just don't LIVE in them, assholes!" The video of this can be viewed <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0q4o58pKwA" target="_blank">here</a>: <span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>Conceptualizerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06975112476307005006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15571857.post-34066168502956412272014-12-01T23:15:00.001-05:002014-12-01T23:32:06.922-05:00Hyperpower: The shot heard round the worldThe shot heard round the world during the beginning of the American War for Independence was indeed heard in every country that has since rebelled against dictatorship and monarchy and chosen liberty and democracy. First throughout Europe and the rest of the Americas, then India, then through the old Soviet Block nations, the Arab Spring as a spurt at least, now undercurrents in China as well as other nations. Even if those revolutions may point to other inspirations, ever since America became an independent democracy, no matter the realities or debates about "how" democratic it is, people around the globe have known and been able to point to one place on earth where people stood up and declared their freedom and still declare it.<br />
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The American experiment has continued with setbacks and struggles. The American culture has grown into a distinct one through the first two centuries of its existence. That culture permeates the entire world through its television, movies, books, magazines, news, fashion, music, and other forms of art. Governments and religious institutions try to slow it or stop it but it can't be stopped because it consists of ideas, especially of ideas about freedoms that all should enjoy.<br />
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And what makes those ideas about freedom so irresistible is their nature as indicated by Thomas Jefferson, they are self-evident. Just as knowing that wind is real even though you can't see it or that gravity is real because you can sense it and feel it or that time is real because its passing leaves its marks, freedom of speech, of thought, of religion, of expression, and all of the other freedoms we hold dear and that our laws maintain, seem naturally right, correct, hard to argue against, true.<br />
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Even though America may win some military battles and wars and loose others, the power of its culture ceaselessly marches forward into every other culture in the world winning victory after victory, reshaping the world to at least grab hold of the freedoms at its core. Instead of a superpower, this cultural hegemony suggest what has been called hyperpower, an influence above and beyond military, political, and economic supremacy.<br />
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<br />Conceptualizerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06975112476307005006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15571857.post-51856010074914233512014-11-23T13:41:00.001-05:002014-11-23T13:41:02.904-05:00What Makes Things or Ideas Go Viral?A recent book, "Contagious: Why Things Catch On" by Jonah Berger, lays out a road-map or a recipe for taking almost anything or any idea and making it go viral. This book completes a trilogy of books by different authors that look at different angles of this topic with the first being Malcolm Gladwell's "The Tipping Point" and the second being Chip and Dan Heath's "Made To Stick". In "Contagious" Jonah Berger presents six ingredients that contribute to the making things spread across a populous, describes why each aspect is significant, and gives numerous examples . He lists the pieces as Social Currency, Triggers, Emotion, Public, Practical Value, and Stories (STEPPS).<br />
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John Berger offers the STEPPS as a framework which he defines succinctly with the following list/acronym which really must be understood alongside the book's narrative on the research behind it and the examples described as well as on the paramount concept that word of mouth IS the vehicle that makes things, products, ideas, etc. (IT) viral. <br />
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<ul>
<li>(S) Social Currency - make talking about IT make people look good, appear smart, worth remarking on to others, feel like an insider, can game-like mechanics like points etc be employed to initiate competitive or habitual achievement type behaviors. </li>
<li> (T) Triggers - make as many associations or links to IT from other things as is sensibly or logically possible; other things that are themselves popular, common place, or commonly encountered often in everyday life.</li>
<li>(E) Emotion - make IT generate emotion when talked about, the more intense the type of feeling, negative or positive, the better as long as the negative type does not turn away people. </li>
<li>(P) Public - make IT publicly tangibly visible when people use IT or talk about IT and if possible make IT reverberate over time after public use or exposure. </li>
<li>(P) Practical Value - make IT help people and thus help people help others by sharing information about IT; make it easy for people to help others by spreading, sharing, or talking about IT</li>
<li>(S) Stories - make IT part of a story that can be retold in a way that cannot leave out IT; make IT integral to the narrative but make sure the story is itself worth retelling by making it broadly interesting while also making use of the other STEPPS if possible within the tale. </li>
</ul>
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The more of the STEPPS that can be applied to IT the better but they are not an all or nothing proposition and they are not sequential. This is just a quick smattering of the concepts in this book. To fully understand each the book should be read in its entirety. </div>
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Conceptualizerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06975112476307005006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15571857.post-24936051721756730422014-11-20T21:03:00.002-05:002014-11-21T02:09:42.356-05:00Covering All Bets, Why American Politics Is Split Down The MiddleMany reasons are cited for the division in modern American politics. Reasons why almost every presidential election, where neither candidate was an incumbent, since Ronald Reagan has been won by a less than 8% difference in the popular vote. In fact however the divisiveness goes back much further with over 90% of the presidential elections, where neither candidate was an incumbent, since 1840 having been won by a 10% or less difference in the popular vote with the exception being during the Great Depression and when candidates had taken over due to an assassination.<br />
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The main reason for this even split is that the slate of candidates to be chosen FROM during any given election is not chosen BY the majority of the American electorate, not even BY a decent minority of say 10 to 10%. The choice of candidates presented to the American electorate is made by the very small number of wealthy individuals, corporations, and other organizations that contribute over 90% of all of the funds used by candidates and parties to run campaigns. This money is given with the intent of influencing a candidate's future behavior if they win office. And since these wealthy individuals, corporations, and other organizations are not in the business of gambling, they cover all bets by planning for all eventualities by giving funds and support to both sides in an election such that both sides are influenced in the same directions no matter what the candidates public discourse may indicate. Hence the American electorate is presented with candidates that represent a difference without distinction.<br />
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The choice then is between two substantively identical options which then really are not "options" and do not constitute a true "choice". A campaign finance overhaul must be implemented that changes the legal max contributions from political donors such that candidates are forced to get donations from a much larger number of individuals distributed across the population.Conceptualizerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06975112476307005006noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15571857.post-7553589646320050912014-11-19T21:55:00.002-05:002014-12-11T15:26:27.167-05:00Stimulate Creativity in Yourself and Others<br /><br />A few exercises and thoughts on being more creative:<br /><br /><br />1. Think of and write down as many uses as possible for an everyday object or define the function of something and then find other things that do or could perform a similar function.<br /><br /><br />2. Given a stack of similar shapes like squares or triangles, make as many things out of them as possible<br /><br /><br />3. Given an unfinished shape like an incomplete triangle or circle or stick house etc. complete the image.<br /><br /><br />4. Given three unrelated words try to discover a fourth that would connect all three.<br /><br /><br />5. Choose a random object word and connect it with a problem. Can this be used to solve or elaborate on the problem?<br /><br /><br />6. Six Thinking Hats - view a problem from different perspectives:<br /><br />a. Managing - what is the subject? what are we thinking about? what is the goal?<br /><br />b. Information - considering purely what information is available, what are the facts?<br /><br />c. Emotions - intuitive or instinctive gut reactions or statements of emotional feeling (but not any justification)<br /><br />d. Discernment - logic applied to identifying reasons to be cautious and conservative<br /><br />e. Optimistic response - logic applied to identifying benefits, seeking harmony<br /><br />f. Creativity - statements of provocation and investigation, seeing where a thought goes<br /><br /><br />7. Don't judge things right away, let them stew before making a conclusion<br /><br /><br />8. If you can't follow what makes you curious when it happens, take note of your own questions to be investigated later<br /><br /><br />9. Make mistakes and learn from failures, both yours and others, sound out crazy or absurd ideas<br /><br /><br />10. Make sure to define problems correctly, dissect the problem.<br /><br /><br />11. What can be modified, rearranged, and/or removed to fix something or find a solution?<br /><br /><br />12. Re-frame ideas within another context or situation.<br /><br /><br />13. Ask why something is done the way it’s done.<br /><br /><br />14. Challenge traditional views and constantly ask "What if" or "Why not"<br /><br /><br />15. Create new mindsets by being open to new experiences like new foods, tastes, music, arts, languages, crafts, fields of study, exercises, sports, locations.<br /><br /><br /><img src="https://media.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/p/2/005/096/109/27bd344.jpg" /><br /><br /><br />Some material gathered from: <br /><br />Todd Anderson, http://99u.com/articles/7160/test-your-creativity-5-classic-creative-challenges<br /><br />Saga Briggs, From: http://www.opencolleges.edu.au/informed/features/divergent-thinking/#ixzz3HgRpFnKW<br /><br />Edward de Bon and Wikipedia "Six Thinking Hats"<br /><br />Science Channel - "Hack My Brain"Conceptualizerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06975112476307005006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15571857.post-90807745895261186392014-11-19T21:54:00.005-05:002014-12-11T15:28:25.700-05:00Software/Solutions, Fabrication or Assembly, What Are We Doing?<br /><br />Is your company or organization fabricating solutions and/or software systems or are you simply assembling pieces and parts of pre-built components into some sort of "system" that performs some set of functions or capabilities? What constitutes true creation, development, or fabrication. One source defines fabrication as "Manufacturing process in which an item is made (fabricated) from raw or semi-finished materials instead of being assembled from ready-made components or parts."<br /><br /><br /><img src="https://media.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/p/4/005/094/372/0b3d85c.jpg" />Conceptualizerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06975112476307005006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15571857.post-86815895662312296762014-11-19T21:54:00.002-05:002014-12-11T15:27:57.900-05:00Are the Tenets of Islam Undemocratic?<br /><br />Are the tenets of Islam as expressed in the Quran and Sharia Law and as interpreted by the majority in majority Muslim nations inherently undemocratic? I mean if the tenets expressed for example in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights http://lnkd.in/dYJV5MF signed by most nations on earth and the similar US Declaration of Independence and the US Bill of Rights do represent moral tenets, a kind of political, social, and cultural morality then a religion, as a set of moral tenets could disagree but in any nation one must publicly, legally, politically take precedent.<br /><br />To be clear, I am implying that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the US Declaration of Independence, the US Bill of Rights, and documents similar in meaning to them represent the defining characteristics of a democracy, in the absence of which or without public belief in a nation is NOT democratic.<br /><br /><br /><img src="https://media.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/p/3/005/092/25c/18afcca.jpg" />Conceptualizerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06975112476307005006noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15571857.post-53938274984948774602014-11-19T21:53:00.001-05:002014-12-11T15:29:01.821-05:00The Next Frontier in Cyber-Warfare<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; margin-bottom: 30px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /><br />With so many researchers and organizations working on AI or pseudo-AI, powerful analysis systems with vast resources and data, inevitably those systems may be directly or indirectly, intentionally or unintentionally, used against one another. Instead of Ray Kurzweil's all powerful AI technological singularity we may instead see a multiplicity of very powerful AI systems come to fruition.<br /><br /><br />What if these systems were taught to deceive other AI systems through manipulation of the data that the other system uses or depends on? What if one system hacked another? What if they cooperated? What if they fought? What if they just caused errors by accident in each other's analysis simply be acting in ways that subverted each other's data, assumptions, logic, etc? Or created feedback loops within each other systems such that they caused each others predictions or analysis or conclusions to be true or false when they would or would not have been otherwise merely through their unintentional interaction?<br /><br /><br />Maybe this is all science fiction but for how long? And what about AI counter-measures?<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-stretch: inherit; height: auto; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" class="center" data-loading-tracked="true" src="https://media.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/p/4/005/08e/0c0/312e3a6.jpg" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; height: auto; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px auto 15px; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" /></span></div>
Conceptualizerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06975112476307005006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15571857.post-2039917688525718532014-11-19T21:52:00.000-05:002014-12-11T15:29:50.857-05:00What will human beings do?<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; margin-bottom: 30px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #4d4f51; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;">T</span></span><br /><br />he last episode of "Parts Unknown" on CNN with Anthony Bourdain on Shanghai contained a discussion between Anthony Bourdain and Professor Zhou Lin, Economist and current Dean of the College of Economics and Management at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Professor Lin was educated in American universities and has taught at Yale, Duke, and Arizona State. During the discussion Professor Lin raises an interesting point at the end of the conversation.<br /><br /><br />He says "the difficulty, nowadays, is" ... that ... "the technology is so advanced ".. that ... "we don't really need that many people to do things that many people used to do," ... with the population being ... "7 billion people, the world probably doesn't need that many people working anymore... So the question is what should human beings do? You know, how can you let them not do anything and then still live a good life? I don't know. It's going to be a big issue" ... that the ... "whole world" ... will have to face"<br /><br /><br />Do we all become poets, artists, philosophers? Vegetate? Dream? If all of the worlds needs and wants can be fulfilled by a few because of technology then how does the rest of the population occupy itself? Or how does it access what the few has produced? If they must buy or trade for it, then how do they get something to trade or buy with? What then is the currency? Or is everything distributed based on some other system? What system?</div>
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Conceptualizerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06975112476307005006noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15571857.post-49568624702126479242014-11-19T21:51:00.000-05:002014-12-11T15:30:07.528-05:00Fallacies of Scale: Agile vs SAFe<br /><br />The Agile development approach as described in the Agile Manifesto, has greatly improved the efficiency of software development in many small to medium sized projects around the world. By connecting development teams with product owners, customers, and gaining continuous feedback with continuously delivered functionality, the Agile approach has transformed software engineering and development.<br /><br /><br />On the other hand, the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) approach, in trying to apply the Agile method to enterprise scale, with teams of teams and scrums or scrums, and release trains etc. has only recreated the waterfall method with new names and designations. The crux of the Agile approach is lost with SAFe. There is no logical reason why Agile should work with large systems development but nevertheless it is being attempted in some cases just so an enterprise can claim to be agile. However, once the connection with the customer is broken and truly useful complete functionality to the end user is no longer what is being delivered, the approach will no longer reap the benefits of the Agile method.<br /><br /><br />Maybe instead of trying to scale up the Agile approach we should instead be looking at how to scale down large projects into sizes that will work with the Agile method and then leave the integration of these smaller systems to methodologies designed for such.<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #4d4f51; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 30px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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Conceptualizerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06975112476307005006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15571857.post-1439881354948764502014-11-19T21:50:00.000-05:002014-12-11T15:31:19.837-05:00Fallacies of Scale: OO vs SO(A)The introduction of Object Oriented design as a continuation of modular programming paradigms, has greatly improved the software development and design process. It has made it much easier and more possible to describe highly complex systems and processes by allowing us to model and work with associated domains and problems in software by abstracting functionality and data. This has decreased complexity, increased reliability, and through efficiency saved resources. Service Oriented design and architectural approaches are an extension of the principles of Object Oriented design to the architectural and systems spaces along with distributed computing principles. As such, Service Oriented design and architecture represents an attempt, whether conscious or not, to translate the success associated with Object Oriented design to a larger scale problem space; to the systems, the systems-of-systems, and/or the distributed systems domains. However, there is no logical reason why this translation should succeed in the transference of benefits from the one scale to the other and it has not done so. Furthermore, I argue that SO(A) has achieved the opposite effect as compared to OOD in that it has increased complexity, decreased reliability, and wasted vast amounts of resources. It may have made it easier for non-technical higher levels of management to think that they understand or can manage systems but this is with great inefficiencies and unnecessary expenditures of time and resources.<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #4d4f51; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 30px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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Conceptualizerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06975112476307005006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15571857.post-32831084177238596132014-11-19T21:49:00.000-05:002014-12-11T15:31:46.751-05:00Subjective Well-Being and Online Social NetworksFabio Sabatini at Sapienza University of Rome in Italy and Francesco Sarracino at STATEC in Luxembourg have published a very interesting study on the use of online social networks and people's subjective sense of general well-being.<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #4d4f51; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 30px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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<br /><br />An article in <a href="http://www.technologyreview.com/view/530401/evidence-grows-that-online-social-networks-have-insidious-negative-effects/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20140901">MIT Tech Review</a>, discusses the results published <a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/1408.3550">here</a><br /><br /><br />I would be curious to see what the impact of online social networking may be on such things as elections, marriages, geographic trends, etc. based on statistically valid data and analysis.<br /><br /><br />Further still, how online social networks are or are not manipulated and how feedback loops might cause types of self-reinforcing and/or self-magnifying effectsConceptualizerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06975112476307005006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15571857.post-8855765736809292722014-11-19T21:48:00.000-05:002014-12-11T15:32:12.243-05:00In Plain Sight<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; margin-bottom: 30px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The wine press existed for over 5000 years before it inspired the printing press.<br /><span style="color: #4d4f51; font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; height: auto; line-height: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" class="center" data-loading-tracked="true" src="https://media.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/p/5/005/082/137/3749436.jpg" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; height: auto; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px auto 15px; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;" /></span></span></div>
What technologies are we staring at in plain sight that might inspire the next great invention that will dramatically alter civilization as we know it?Conceptualizerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06975112476307005006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15571857.post-32805843726866965742014-11-19T21:46:00.001-05:002014-12-11T15:32:37.784-05:00Change Isn't EverythingOur attention and focus are often caught by movement and change. But often what is not changing, what is constant, what is immovable, is what is more important. Think of this as looking at the negative of a picture on film. Take for example fractals.<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; margin-bottom: 30px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #4d4f51; font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; height: auto; line-height: inherit; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" class="center" data-loading-tracked="true" src="https://media.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/p/7/005/080/26c/129c633.jpg" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; height: auto; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px auto 15px; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;" /></span></span>What's interesting about fractals are the repeating patterns. Patterns that appear at infinite scale within the pattern itself. In other words the unchanging aspect is more important than the changing. Or imagine an event where a crowd is being watched for threats. A few individuals in the crowd seem to have NOT moved throughout the day. The rest of the crowd has ebbed and flowed during the same time. What if those individuals are THE threat? Maybe they were preposition to do some harm. If you were only paying attention to what was changing you might have missed the threat. That could be categorized as pattern recognition but maybe the only "patterns" being tracked were change patterns. Sometimes constants can reveal underlying fundamental structures and lead to extensible truths concerning common phenomena. Some hidden aspects that might lead to a breakthrough.</div>
Conceptualizerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06975112476307005006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15571857.post-90502938050179332692010-04-02T00:25:00.007-04:002010-04-19T23:16:32.848-04:00Beyond SOA and EAI, Reflective AppsImagine extending the type of reflection built into Java objects to whole applications. Just as Java objects can be interrogated to determine fields, methods, interfaces, inheritance, so to can applications be developed that provide similar information. All that is required is a common means of expressing such information.<br />Obviously XML would be a prime candidate as a language to express reflective application metadata. WSDL does enable something like reflection but it is targeted at web services.<br />Before universally reflective applications can talk there must exist a universal means of communicating between applications no matter what technologies are use to implement those apps. CORBA attempts to bridge application to application communication but has had many issues. JEE attempts to make this same bridge by using containers. HTTP enables web servers to communicate with each other and with browsers. Everyone has agreed to follow the HTTP standard. What is needed is something equivalent to HTTP for applications in general, not just web servers, to communicate.<br />Will that standard simply be implemented on top of tcp/ip stack? Could everyone agree on a standard XML schema, on the exchange protocol, common ports, etc.Conceptualizerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06975112476307005006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15571857.post-2984329473145668352009-12-13T23:36:00.003-05:002009-12-13T23:40:24.519-05:00When did code become a dirty word? SOA merely moves the logicSOA has been heralded as a panacea. Why, so we can avoid changing code or the need to write code?<br /><br />In SOAs, using the service interface pattern to achieve loose coupling merely moves the logic for determining which implementation of a service or component of code is used during any given invocation of such interfaces from code to system configurations, contracts, protocol definitions, UDDI registries, standards definitions, metadata dictionaries, etc, etc. not to mention compliance and monitoring because at some point in a system, logic must be exercised to determine the routing of method calls to concrete implementations. SOA is supposed to make it so that implementations can be changed by manipulating these SOA elements without changing code.<br /><br />If code became a dirty word because it was decided that changing code is too expensive and/or time consuming then why would you replace it with something that is even more complex, expensive and time consuming such as aforementioned SOA elements?<br />Also, the last time I checked the specialties needed as far as personnel in SOA systems like SO Architects, system architects, etc. and those needed to maintain monitoring and compliance are much more expensive than software engineers.<br /><br />If all of the time and money that has been spent on SOA were to have been spent on concrete components and systems such as AspectJ that allow instrumentation at the code level and other capabilities that serve as glue or connectors at the code level or technologies that allow easy linking of applications across computer language boundaries, then software and systems engineering would be in a far better state.<br /><br />Even though the links in a system really do define it, as is often the case, they are either completely ignored or not even recognized as entities in and of themselves. Links are instead seen as constraints or guides but not as essential parts themselves. In steel fabrication the links in the system are the welds. They are treated as special entities that require special attention to the point of using x-rays when the welds must be without defect to some high tolerance. In the area of search, Google has recognized the significance of links as a part of their page ranking system and treated them with special attention. It is time for software and system engineering to stop "defining" the links between applications and start building the links as efficient hard technologies not abstract protocols and frameworks. These technologies are of necessity built anyway but it is done in such a way as to create a concrete representation of protocols or frameworks instead of with an eye toward efficiency and optimization to the task at hand. Or else they are created as part of a vendor's application or SOA stack that is only optimized in the context of the rest of said vendor's stack. In the end, if you want to change the behavior of a system you must change something in the system or in its environment. When changing the environment becomes more complex and expensive than just changing the system, then just change the system, just change the code.Conceptualizerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06975112476307005006noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15571857.post-90242987830622176742009-11-19T23:01:00.003-05:002009-11-19T23:14:13.415-05:00"Attack Pattern", New Game App on BlackBerry App World<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEoYjDcDjAryG2L4vCFY-p4jIT8dW6C9IjxchYNxmNWK-D1sqAqjbL_GgQkDtaBWVG8Ycj0izQlT_RK3t-TEaZ8yuyeovYVZAN4LNrjuNDLvgFqLJh_jmzwQ6zzKvAgefe38Lg/s1600/APlarge.GIF"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 242px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEoYjDcDjAryG2L4vCFY-p4jIT8dW6C9IjxchYNxmNWK-D1sqAqjbL_GgQkDtaBWVG8Ycj0izQlT_RK3t-TEaZ8yuyeovYVZAN4LNrjuNDLvgFqLJh_jmzwQ6zzKvAgefe38Lg/s320/APlarge.GIF" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5406033769308034386" border="0" /></a><br />New application from DevSpring Software Inc. called Attack Pattern tests your ability to out think computer in terms of pattern creation. You must think ahead several moves in order to beat the computer on highest difficulty with largest game grid size. I could not beat it. You must create your random pattern before the computer creates its pattern. You get to color two squares per turn. You can either block the computer or try to complete your pattern.Conceptualizerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06975112476307005006noreply@blogger.com0