Seems like every morning there is a big story with details of the vast array of surveillance conducted by the federal government. Here is a broad overview of news in the last 2 weeks.
How do you talk to a reporter with minimum risk of being found out? What does the answer to that question tell the rest of us who don’t have really juicy stuff to spill to a national reporter?
You leave digital crumbs every time you use the internet or your computer or any device that accesses the ‘net. How then to securely leak info to the media?
700 Free Online Courses from Top Universities
Your choice of video or audio in either iTunes or mp3 format. Tons of courses. Well, advertised at 700, but I didn’t try counting them.
Free.
If you want to learn it will cost your time.
Amazing.
The frontier is wide open in education.
Check out the Business Insider set of graphs showing how much better things have gotten in the last few decades or the last century.
31 Charts That Will Restore your Faith In Humanity.
A few of my favorites: Read more…
Reports are surfacing that businesses and colleges are planning to reduce hours for part-time staff.
Now news is appearing that state governments are working the same plan.
Why? Read more…
John Bredehoft expanded my discussion on the tech revolution just getting started.
In his post, Why are some revolutions imperceptible?, he describes the revolution in his industry from getting powerful PCs. The impact on the economy was tiny, if even measurable, because the entire industry was small in relation to the overall US economy.
To point out how small the publishing and music industries are, he looked at the Fortune 500 list of largest companies in terms of sales. He points out that the largest identifiable media companies are News Corp at 91 and Time Warner at 103.
Since I’m an accountant and like to quantify things, his post gave me an interesting idea. I went to the list and did a quick analysis to compare the size of a few industries.
That we haven’t seen the full impact of IT is a comment I heard the first time a few years ago. That sort of made sense but didn’t really register. This blog is focused on sorting out that change. The idea that the technology revolution has barely begun finally clicked for me with a column by Matthew Yglesias – Why I’m Optimistic About Growth and Innovation.
A few industries have seen huge impact from technology. Think of book publishing, journalism, and music. Those industries have been turned upside down. I read a lot and listen to a bit of music so am quite attuned to those areas. The way everyone consumes news has been transformed. I regularly read dozens of blogs a day. They just appear on my computer screen with a mouse click or two. I’ve always been a news junkie, and my consumption has soared in the last few years.
However, as big as those industries are, they are a small part of the total economy.
The music and publishing industries have been transformed by the technology revolution. Some signs are appearing that technology might remake health care.
The Wall Street Journal article, Midlevel Health Jobs Shrink, reports that several trends are reducing opportunities for people in health care with midlevel skill sets.
Here’s a great summary in the article:
Automation, outsourcing and other forces have eliminated many formerly secure jobs in manufacturing, clerical work and other fields. Now health care is following the same path with unforeseen speed.
A huge barrier for on-line education will be getting approval from the education regulators for financial assistance. Next hurdle will be accreditation for a stand-alone institution.
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports in Competency-Based Education Advances With U.S. Approval of Program:
The Education Department has approved the eligibility of Southern New Hampshire University to receive federal financial aid for students enrolled in a new, self-paced online program called College for America, the private, nonprofit university has announced.
In a footnote to his post In Search of Resilience, Seth Godin says:
Henry Mason describes a friend who said, “My dad had one job his whole life, I’ll have seven, and my kids will have seven jobs at the same time.”
One study is quantifying the increased productivity of on-line classes for professors. The analysis didn’t consider the reduced space needs or savings from students not having to commute to class. Both of those factors would contribute to the productivity improvement.
Conclusion was a reduction in time of between 36% and 57%.
Orbital Sciences Corp. had a successful test of their privately designed, funded and built spaceship. Their lifting vehicle made it to orbit and the cargo pod successfully separated. See Private company succeeds in test launch of rocket that will carry cargo ship.
They are one of two companies that will be providing lift capability to NASA: Read more…
When Amazon conceded on collecting tax on sales to people in California in 2012 they gained a phenomenal advantage – they could finally open up distribution centers in the state.
Previously, they didn’t have any warehouses in California. Now there is one in San Bernardino, at the eastern edge of the huge Los Angeles metropolitan area. There are others further north.
What can they do now? Have next day delivery. Do you suppose they will move toward same day delivery? Can you picture the bold type comment “Order in the next 2 hours for delivery today” on the screen as you shop early in the day?
Privacy on the Internet is gone. It’s toast.
That is the point of Bruce Schneier’s post, Our Internet Surveillance State.
We leave crumbs of data spread around every time we use our computer or smart phone. With the cost of storing data essentially zero, every provider keeps a record of everything you do. And why not? The cost is zero to record your last Internet search or which cell tower has connection to your phone this moment.
Our privacy is shot when you put huge numbers of crumbs together.
Drones are becoming quite popular for individuals and governments. I haven’t spent enough time talking about drones – their popularity is growing rapidly.
Cheap drones for individuals
For a few hundred dollars you can buy an easy-to-fly drone that can stream HD feed to your smart phone. That according to the video at Spying eyes or a bit of fun, drones fly off the shelves at Sydney Morning Herald.
