I want you to watch these 6 movies (in this order): {{The Wizard of Oz}} {{Ferris Bueller’s Day Off}} {{Night of the Living Dead}} (1968 edition) {{The Godfather}} {{Pi}} {{Inception}} Watch them with a notebook and pen or pencil handy (yes: use physical writing and recording tools; don’t use your laptop, tablet, or phone). Write …
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Category:ideas
remembering to forget
As a society, we have forgotten how to forget. We are addicted to storing everything forever. Why? New Atlas had an article recently on the demise of skyscrapers in favor of new ones which starts off, The Great Pyramid of Giza has stood at a height of around 460 feet for 4,500 years, but these days we …
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document what didn’t work
In a recent episode of Paul’s Security Weekly, an off-hand comment was made about documentation: you shouldn’t merely document what to do, nor even why, but also what you tried that didn’t work (ie, augment the status quo). The upshot being, to save whomever comes to this note next (especially if it turns out to be yourself) effort you spent that …
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what is “plan b” for iot security?
{{Schneier}} has a recent article on security concerns for {{IoT}} (internet of things) devices – IoT Cybersecurity: What’s Plan B? We can try to shop our ideals and demand more security, but companies don’t compete on IoT safety — and we security experts aren’t a large enough market force to make a difference. We need a …
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crowdsourcing patronage
Just what is journalism going to look like in the future? It’s a question that’s been bouncing around my head for a while, and articulated in various pieces by Ben Thompson (in a nichification process), my friend Eric Hydrick, and others. Eric brought up the idea of supporting “special” journalism through services like Patreon. I …
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pi-hole revisited
Back in November, I was really up on Pi-hole. But after several more months of running it … I am far less psyched than I had been. I’m sure part of that is having gotten better internet services at my house – so the impact of ads is less noticeable. But a major part of …
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raas – the failure of “-as-a-service” in the physical world
Roads are empty something like 90% of the time. 8% of the time, they’re rightly-sized. 1.5% of time, they’re a little tight 1.5% of time, they’re a little tight.But that .5%? Holy CRAP But that .5%? Holy CRAP are they ever too small when they’re too small. Imagine if the “*-as-a-Service” model could be applied …
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kvp is a lousy way to teach
Recently on one of the podcasts I listen to, I heard an offhanded comment made about how history is taught not in patterns but as facts. For example, “On the 18th of April in ’75, hardly a man is now alive, who remembers that famous day and year”. Rarely are the “whys” explained – understandably …
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vampires vs zombies
A few years ago I wrote about why I like good vampire and zombie stories. I had an epiphany this week related to that, that I thought you’d all find interesting. If vampires exist, zombies can not exist [long] in the same universe. Why? Because they’d be eliminating the only source of food for the …
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i’m surprised facebook doesn’t offer something akin to aws, gcp, azure, etc
Given the ridiculous popularity of {{Facebook}}, their huge datacenter investments, super-resilient computing models, etc, I’m very surprised they haven’t gotten into the cloud computing business like Amazon’s {{AWS}}, Google’s Cloud, {{Microsoft Azure}}, Digital Ocean, etc.
here seems like it would be perfect for pilots
With Here, you can download maps to use offline. And, via personal experimentation, I can attest to the rapidity with which the screen will update (even in “airplane mode”) on my {{iPhone}} when in a commercial jet if I have Here open. So why don’t they advertise their mapping product(s) to pilots? Or do they, …
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browsers should have integrated sharing ability
Mobile browsers can all share pages via whatever is available on your tablet, {{iPad}}, {{Android}}, {{iPhone}}, etc. Why do ‘full’ browsers not offer the same thing without goofy extensions?
above the cloud storage
Who wants to go into business with me? I’ve got a super-cool storage company idea. Load up a metric buttload of cubesats with radiation-hardened {{SSD}} storage, solar power, and [relatively] simple communicaton stacks (secured by {{SSH}} or {{SSL}}, of course), and launch them into orbit. You think cloud storage is cool? What about above-the-cloud storage? Pros: …
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meetings
The author of a recent Medium post is so close to right, it’s scary. Gary says the best thing you can do is to cut your meeting length in half. And that is a phenomenal step. One that needs to happen. But one that needs to happen in conjunction with an even more monumental shift. Change the start time …
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electric power at every wheel
It seems odd to me that most, if not all, electric vehicles don’t put individual drive motors at each wheel. It’d seem like doing so would be a more efficient transfer of energy from the electrical generation / storage system to propelling the vehicle than having centralized drives like IC-based cars. Or maybe they do, …
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plogging?
{{Wired Magazine}} recently had an article on the rise of “plogging“. By their definition, “plogging” is “PLatform blOGGING” – or {{blogging}} as part of a network/site/service (DZone, LinkedIn, Medium, Facebook, etc) instead of running your own blog somewhere (WordPress.com, Blogger, self-hosted WordPress, etc). This seems to be a modern representation of what newspapers, magazines, etc …
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“like” problems: social ‘voting’ is a bad idea
The news story making the rounds about {{Facebook}} the past few days indicates they’re working on a kind of “dislike” button. The problem with the Facebook “like” button is the same problem {{Google}} has with Google+ and their “+1” button: it doesn’t tell you anything meaningful. Voting on Reddit doesn’t really convey much meaning, either. Stack …
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on-demand, secure, distributed storage – one step closer
In follow-up to a post from 2013, and earlier this year, I’ve been working on a pointy-clicky deployable MooseFS+{{ownCloud}} atop encrypted file systems environment you can rent/buy as a service from my company. I’ve also – potentially – kicked-off a new project from Bitnami to add MooseFS to their apps list.
primary elections should happen at the same time across the country
In Kentucky, this past Tuesday was Primary Day. The day every registered voter, in the appropriate party, could go to the polls and say who we want to run to represent our party in the General Election. While political parties, as such, need to be abolished, and voting is borked, that every state holds its …
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a simple restructuring of elections
In close follow-up with my desire to see political parties abolished, we also need to rethink how voting is done. In the United States, you can only vote for a single candidate for most positions (town councils are an exception). You do not have the opportunity to say anything more than a binary yes|no to a …
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political parties should be abolished
John Adams and George Washington, among many others, both warned of the dangers of political parties. There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be …
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vision for lexington
Over the past 5 years, I have witnessed some of the growth Lexington KY has started to undergo. From a population in the city proper of about 260,000 in 2000 to 295,000 in 2010 to an estimated 315,000 in 2015, While there seems to be something of a plan/vision for the downtown area, the majority of …
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steam by andrea sutcliffe
{{Andrea Sutcliffe}}’s book {{Steam: The Untold Story of American’s First Great Invention}} was a pure joy to read. Being the second review I’m writing with my “new” system, I hope you find this book as interesting as I have. In 1784, {{James Rumsey}} designed a boat that could, by purely mechanical means, move its way …
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columnar “email”
There needs to be a better way of handling group conversations. IRC uses the constant scroll mentality. Email has reply-at-top, reply-at-bottom, and reply-inline. Forums, reddit, Google+, Facebook, Twitter, and the like have a scroll-like view – every new post is merely sequentially listed after the last. This can all lead to highly confusing digital conversations. …
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fix ibm – hire me as your ceo
Robert Cringely has written myriad times on IBM. His most recent post was titled, “How to fix IBM”. His solution is simple and easy: “Go back to customers being a corporate priority.” But IBM, as it stands today, will never get there. And all the “leadership” they’ve brought in over the years has only compounded their …
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