Month: September 2014

Can you live with mission critical applications disappearing for a week?

Consider your vulnerabilities to a software vendor disappearing overnight.

I changed RSS readers for a third time this week. They keep shutting down on me.

As an active blogger, reading a lot of blogs and news sources is mission critical. Well, I suppose I choose to make it mission critical – it’s a big deal for me.

Substitute your mission critical applications for my reliance on RSS feed and you can think through an assessment of how vulnerable you are to vendors just going away.

(Cross-posted from my other blog, Nonprofit update.)

On Monday Bloglines disappeared. That has been my RSS feed for quite a while. Might be a server problem. Maybe a software upgrade that failed. Down lines somewhere. I can live with that for a little bit.

Continue reading “Can you live with mission critical applications disappearing for a week?”

More good stuff on the open frontiers – 9/11

Vinyl LPs going strong, Rams vs. Drones is lopsided game, downside of cell phone tracking.

Surge of US energy production and a collapse in Venezuela.

Just like the wild west in the late 1800s, the frontiers of private space exploration, energy and technology are wide open. A few articles to stretch your brain.

A decidedly low-tech countermeasure to surveillance drones:

9/2 – The Dish – Sheep Solved Drone Debate – From Buddhanz1. A ram is not amused with an intruding drone and takes it out. Is equally unamused by owner of said drone trying to make an escape with the recovered drone:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfLCb4ewDDc&feature=player_embedded]

Technology

 

8/27 – TVGConsulting – The History of Business Technology – Continue reading “More good stuff on the open frontiers – 9/11”

More good stuff on the Bakken – 9/10

Here’s a few quick notes on interesting news that I won’t cover in a separate post.

Here is an early estimate for the July numbers. On 8/25, Bentek Energy issued a press release: Production from Bakken, Eagle Ford Rose 3.4% in July. Their prediction is

Continue reading “More good stuff on the Bakken – 9/10”

Don’t compare your messy backstage to someone’s presentable front stage

Things behind the scene are invisible to others. That’s the backstage. The ready-to-go portion shown to the world is the only part others see. That’s the front stage.

The ol’ sage advice is don’t compare your backstage to the front stage you see of others.

(This article is cross-posted from my other blog, Nonprofit Update, because it is helpful to sort out the appearances of what is happening around us.)

This applies in so many areas.

You know how your children behave at home or on a long vacation or how much effort it takes to get homework done. What you see in other families is the on-your-best-behavior public face and the brag-ready list of accomplishments that were oh so easy to achieve.

Compare the backstage of your family to someone else’s front stage as if that was actually a valid comparison and you will be distressed with either your children or your parenting skills. The most likely outcome is wondering why you are a failure as a parent.

Jeff Walker has a great video about that idea. He uses a messily hand-tailored shirt as a great contrast of the slick front stage and the messy, sloppy, slap-dash back stage.

Check this out:

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Herruzu4HYY&feature=player_embedded]

 

Literally the difference between Continue reading “Don’t compare your messy backstage to someone’s presentable front stage”

Tragedy of Fraud – Insider Trading Edition available at Amazon

Now available at Amazon:

tragedy-cover

Tragedy of Fraud – Insider Trading Edition: The fall from Big 4 audit partner to prison inmate.

Until April 2013, former KPMG audit partner Scott London was in charge of the audit practice for the southwest region. He was responsible for the audit work of 500 accountants and had the paycheck to go with those duties.

Today he is a prison inmate residing at the federal penitentiary in Lompoc, California serving a 14 month sentence.

Continue reading “Tragedy of Fraud – Insider Trading Edition available at Amazon”

Update on marijuana regulation – regulation experiment #8

A few updates on the natural experiments running in Colorado and Washington to see what impact heavy regulation has on a new industry. Maryland offers a few ideas on how to strangle the medical marijuana industry to death before it is born.

Again, so you know why I’m paying attention, my hypothesis is the heavy taxes and regulations will severely restrict the new industry.

8/8 – Spokesman-Review – Pot taxes top $1 million in first month – Continue reading “Update on marijuana regulation – regulation experiment #8”

Wood-burners – The high cost of using 1860s and 1930s technology for heating, illumination, and cooking

The cutting edge of renewable energy is chopping down trees, chipping them, loading the chips onto a truck, transporting to a brand new plant, and burning them.

Yes, burning trees to read your paper at night, illuminate your office during the day, and (for some) cooking dinner. The new technology is called biomass.

That’s the same power source used by Abraham Lincoln when he was going to school. His family used wood for cooking, heating, and illumination.

In fact, as recently as when my dad was growing up on a farm, the family used wood for cooking and heating. Thanks to John Rockefeller, they were able to use kerosene for illumination. They would buy coal to keep the house warm overnight. Wood was the sole cooking source and primary heating source.

Public Service of New Hampshire has a new wood-burner fully online. I calculate it will cost New Hampshire residents an extra 1 or 2  cents a kilowatt-hour.

For the next 20 years.

New wood-burner plant at full capacity

Continue reading “Wood-burners – The high cost of using 1860s and 1930s technology for heating, illumination, and cooking”