Reinke Faces Life

http://www.salon.com/books/history/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2011/06/14/lind_information_technology

TOPIC: History
TUESDAY, JUN 14, 2011 07:01 ET
WAR ROOM
We need a New Deal for information technology
BY MICHAEL LIND

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America’s attention is focused on the faltering recovery from the Great Recession. But we cannot neglect another question: Where are we in the long-term technology cycle?

In the mid-20th cenIn the mid-20th century, the economist Joseph Schumpeter observed that technological innovation is not a continuous process, but tends to be concentrated in bursts of economy-transforming change. Within the industrial epoch that began in Britain in the 18th century and continues today, historians have discerned three or four or five successive industrial revolutions, driven by “general purpose technologies” like the steam engine, electricity, automobiles and airplanes, and information technology.

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The evolution of a transformative technology can be retarded or accelerated by public policy. In particular, government policy can remove roadblocks on the path to the new technology’s implementation. These can take two forms: infrastructural roadblocks and social roadblocks.

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Today’s universities and hospitals are the equivalents of neighborhoods hosting numerous individual blacksmiths working independently. They need to be replaced by higher education factories and health (not sickness) factories. Tasks done today by a few highly paid, credentialed elite professionals and an army of low-paid lecturers and health aides should be broken down, analyzed and reassigned to the moderately paid, middle-class Ed workers and Med workers of tomorrow. This may require a combination of capital deepening (the use of new technology) and deskilling (a moderately educated, moderately paid nurse with high-tech equipment may be a better diagnostician than today’s highly educated, richly remunerated M.D.)

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Finally, we can promote “universal capitalism” by increasing ownership of income-generating assets, like shares in growing corporations, although the disastrous experience with 401K’s shows that any such programs must limit risk. Some combination of these reforms will probably be necessary to remove low wages as a social roadblock to the maturation of the information economy.

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Michael Lind is Policy Director of the Economic Growth Program at the New America Foundation and is the author of “The Next American Nation: The New Nationalism and the Fourth American Revolution.” More: Michael Lind

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imho

The last thing we need is more Gooferment.

Part of the reason for the mess that “we” are in is the continued interference by Gooferment into the “free market”.

And, he wants the Gooferment to lead us into the “Promised Land”.

My personal connection with the Gooferment and “technology” is my cousin, who was a happy elevator operator, and me at AT&T. The elevator operator was thrown out of work by the minimum wage law. I was a casualty, along with Bell Labs and a lot of good folks, by Judge Green and divestiture.

Without Gooferment, people would just lead their lives. Instead, the “plantation masters” use Gooferment force to channel us like the cows in the stockyards.

Argh!

No thanks.

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http://technorati.com/technology/article/why-the-icloud-wont-be-my  

Why the iCloud Won’t be My Cloud
Author: Stephen Lee
Published: June 16, 2011 at 5:29 pm

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Talk of “cloud computing” and “cloud services” has been in the air for years, but (despite the remaining ambiguity in the minds of consumers) recent developments have garnered a little more of the consumer electronics limelight for this burgeoning technology.

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While the jury is still out, I’m beginning to have a lot of concerns:

(1) Control

Apple’s stuff is aligned with Apple’s interest not just mine. Look at how it can dump stuff and change stuff willy nilly. The big argument against ANY “cloud service” is that you, the end User and PAYING Customer, can’t depend upon it staying the same.

(2) Music

Apple is at peace with the RIAA. That’s a concern! All this “service” on any music you have? And, of course, it would never report pirates to the Empire. Can’t you see the “possibilities”? (I envision subpoenas to ISPs coordinated by “iSnoop” to prove that someone bit torrent in a particular music file followed by “service” of lawsuits.)

<<to be continued>>

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http://apple.slashdot.org/story/11/06/19/1434211/Will-Capped-Data-Plans-Kill-the-Cloud

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With the introduction of its Chromebook, Google is betting big on the Cloud. As is Apple, with its iCloud initiative. So too are Netflix and Skype. Unfortunately, their very existence is threatened by data-capping carriers, who have set a course to make sure that the network is NOT the computer.

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(3) Unlimited / Ubiquitous Connectivity

Clearly the assumption is as much as you want from where ever you are. Not necessarily a good assumption. Or an inexpensive one.

# – # – # – # – # 2011-Jun-19 @ 14:26

http://www.yatedo.com

People Search Engine

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I always am looking for Jaspers. Graduates of Manhattan College. THE Manhattan College. http://manhattan.edu

So I do a lot of searches for “manhattan college”.

I’m never surprised when it’s wrong.

I compensate a lot:

“manhattan college” -marymount -“marymount manhattan college” -“borough of manhattan college” -marymount -manhattan.edu -bmcc.cuny.edu -msmnyc.edu

I’m frustrated, but rarely surprised.

I did my usual search and it even offered a search.

schoolname:((manhattan college))

But I was disappointed when it returned BOMC and MMC.

Argh!

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http://advantage-marketingblog.com/2011/06/02/social-media-and-phishing/

Social Media’s Dark Side: Phishing and Scams

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Here’s what employees can do to avoid becoming the prey of phishing attacks:

1. Never click on a link or a bookmark which is associated with financial transactions or asks for any sensitive information; instead always manually type the URL in the address bar.

2. Don’t click on links which ask to download ActiveX or software on your system. These could be Trojan/malware which later becomes the control center to remotely control your system and others in the network.

3. Ensure that the site is authentic and using secure layer (https) before providing any sensitive information about yourself or your organization.

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Good advice for real people as opposed to “employees”.

I’d add “Switch to Open DNS”. It’s free and will prevent you from being “speared” by a “phisher”.

(On a technical note, it does that by preventing your browser from resolving known bad names into ip addresses. Thus, you’ll see the Open DNS “warning screen” with the option “Get me out of here”. It’s not perfect, but another compensating control.)

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https://local.nixle.com/alert/4699441/?sub_id=241886  

Thursday June 9, 2011 1:51 PM EDT
NEW POLICE LANGUAGE SERVICE SAVES PERSON

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On Tuesday South Brunswick Police used a new language service to help locate a victim suffering a heart attack. At around 10am a woman called 911 from a cellphone seeking help. The dispatcher was unable to determine where the victim was or the problem. The dispatcher connected to a translator through a new program used by South Brunswick Police called Interpretalk. The translator was able to assist the dispatcher with identifying the location of the victim within two minutes of being on the call. When police officers and EMS arrived they found the 49-year-old victim was suffering a heart attack. The victim was taken to a local area hospital and is listed in good condition.

The new translation service – Interpretalk allows dispatchers and police officers to be able to communicate in 157 languages, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The service which has been available to the department since March of 2011 has been used 7 times. Chief Raymond Hayducka said, “Our community is diverse and we want to be able to assist anyone in need. This new tool gives officers and dispatchers another way to get help to people in need in an emergency.” He added, “This case clearly demonstrates the importance of being able to reach out to all aspects of our community.”

The service is used once a dispatcher or officer believes there is a language barrier. The dispatcher contacts Language Sevice Associates who provide the translation. Communication Center Supervisor James Deery said, “We could not understand where the victim was and her being on a cellphone made it more difficult. The service Interpretalk provided was quick and provided the lifesaving measures she needed.”

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Neat use of technology. From a network perspective, it’s really just a fancy three way calling option. Getting it all set up, agreed to, and paid for that was the heavy lifting. That’s effective use of technology.

# – # – # – # – # 2011-Jun-09 @ 14:51

http://it.slashdot.org/story/11/06/06/1321257/A-Brief-Sony-Password-Analysis

A Brief Sony Password Analysis
Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday June 06, @09:30AM
from the change-it-now-people dept.

troyhunt writes

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99% of passwords don’t contain a single non-alphanumeric character.”

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It would seem that two short words separated by a “special” character would be a great password.

9vfj#4fkh kdj5@3jdz 4ax4$32az

Give the hackers another 10 characters to worry about.

26 lower case, 26 upper case, 10 digits, 10 specials = 72

(72) ** password length *** equals a long time for crackers.

Even if you cheat like I suggested — [(62)**4 (10) (62)**4] — is still a long time.

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http://www.macworld.com/article/160120-2/2011/05/ebook_prices_outrage_innovation.html

E-Book prices fuel outrage — and innovation
by Narasu Rebbapragada, PCWorld May 30, 2011 9:00 am

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The evolution to digital will differ by publisher. Hachette’s Thomas anticipates, “Some print runs will decline, some will expand, and new readers (who were not previously regular physical book buyers) will enter the market because of the digital revolution.”

And only time will tell where in the pricing spectrum—from best-selling $25-plus hardbacks at one end to 99-cent music downloads at the other—e-book prices will settle. Some argue that there’s no incentive for publishers to cut prices. Despite the public protests, people are buying e-books in droves. Others point to the inevitable downward trend of digital content prices.

“It’s still a little bit like the Wild West out there,” says Brian Felsen of the current digital publishing landscape. But who lassos whom—publisher, retailer, or self-made author—remains to be seen.

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Clearly, the inet is crashing existing business models.

If marketing is a “conversation”, then the model has to profit off that “conversation”. That’s what is important developing that community. Monetizing it is secondary.

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http://blip.tv/the-raxis-report/nh-clog-bill-d-s-speeding-ticket-trial-2571630

NH-CLOG: Bill D.’s speeding ticket trial
The Raxis Report

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(1) Entertaining to use the Gooferment’s court to fight a ticket.

(2) Imagine if they had to do this for EVERY ticket? The system would grind to a halt.

So that how we have to fight. Make small battles too expensive. And, clog their “courts” so they can’t get to the big issues.

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