Change around us – Page 10

Downside of cool modern tech: Massive breach of federal personnel systems

The public now knows of two rounds of massive breaches at the federal agency that handles all personnel records. First round looks like it was essentially the basic personnel file of all current and many former federal employees.

Second round is the long forms used to process security clearances. Looks like it was military and spy agency records. Great. Those files list all relatives, making them vulnerable to coercion. Provides lots of ideas on how to turn or compromise employees.

Hackers meandered around the systems for a year.

If you want to build a deep profile of military, diplomatic, and spy agency staff for use over the next several decades, this would be a fantastic starting point. Will take a while to process all the files and synthesize with social media and published news reports, but those countries who wish us harm will have a superb database to track and compromise federal employees.

Continue reading “Downside of cool modern tech: Massive breach of federal personnel systems”

More good stuff on the open frontiers – 5/29

A few articles on the astoundingly open frontiers of technology and private space exploration.

Technology

5/21 – Popular Mechanics – Brain Implant Lets Teraplegic Man drink Beer with a Robot Arm – Although this is a little bity step, consider what a huge leap it is from what could be done before.

Sensors attached to a man’s head pick up electronic signals corresponding to him wanting to move his arm. Those signals control a robotic arm to move a cup of water up and toward him so that he can take a sip.

Continue reading “More good stuff on the open frontiers – 5/29”

The energy future is so bright we may have to trade in our sunglasses for welder’s goggles

Here are two resources I came across on the same day that point to why the future is so incredibly bright that regular sunglasses might not be enough:

Shale 2.0 – Technology and the Coming Big-Data Revolution in America’s Shale Oil Fields, by Mark Mills, of the Manhattan Institute

Economic Impact and Legal Analysis of the Shale Oil and Gas Activities in Mexico, preliminary report – by University of Texas San Antonio and others. Prof Thomas Tunstall is the principal investigator and Javier Oyakawa is the lead investigator at UTSA.

I have just started reading both of the reports. Plan to finish them in the next few days and will have more to say then.

A couple of initial thoughts:

The Manhattan Institute study suggests the shale revolution of the last five or seven years is barely getting started. The technological innovations in the last couple of years are going to accelerate.

Continue reading “The energy future is so bright we may have to trade in our sunglasses for welder’s goggles”

More glimpses that disruptive change is already here – (radical change #4)

The disruptive change around us is staggering. Yet I don’t see how it will disrupt my business, which is the auditing sector of public accounting. Before I get into that, here are a few more articles on the change going on around us.

Just in case you are wondering what digital disruption looks like, check out this graph of newspaper ad revenue for the last 65 years, adjusted for inflation:

(Copyright Carpe Diem, used with permission.)

4/30 – Carpe Diem – Creative destruction: Newspaper ad revenue continued its precipitous free fall in 2014, and it’s likely to continue – Above graph is from this article, which points out that print advertising has dropped 57% in six years and is down 75% from the 2000 high 14 years ago.

Adding back digital advertising puts the volume of advertising essentially at the same level as in 1950 when adjusted for inflation. Phrased differently, it took 50 years to go from $20B to $67B and merely 14 years to lose all that growth.

More examples:

Continue reading “More glimpses that disruptive change is already here – (radical change #4)”

Update on the open frontiers – 4/29

There are amazing things going on in the wide open frontiers of technology and eduction. Here’s a few articles that caught my eye.

Technology

4/6 – American Interest (Peter) – Jobs of the Future, Travel Agent Edition– Article suggests demand for travel agents is growing and could even outstrip the supply soon.

How can this possibly be? I thought the ‘net deleted the need for travel agents.

Continue reading “Update on the open frontiers – 4/29”

More good stuff on surveillance – 4/27

Here is my sixteenth list of good stuff on our surveillance society. A few articles of interest.

The depth, breadth, and speed of the surveillance continues to astound me.

4/21 – Schneier on Security – Hacker Detained by FBI after Tweeting about Airplane Software Vulnerabilities – Check out the speed of surveillance in this story.

While in the air from Denver to New York, a security researcher joked in a tweet about hacking specific airplane systems. When he landed, the FBI detained him for a 4 hour interrogation and confiscated his electronics.

Continue reading “More good stuff on surveillance – 4/27”

More good stuff on open frontiers – 4/17

The frontiers of private space travel, technology innovations, and the education revolution are amazing to watch. Here are a few articles that caught my eye that I thought are worth a mention of the frontiers that are wide open today:

Space

4/14 – Popular Mechanics – Elon Musk: Falcon 9 Landed “Too Hard for Survival’ – Getting closer to success… The third attempt to land the first stage of SpaceX’s rocket didn’t quite work. The rocket landed on the barge, but apparently hit too hard for the rocket to be reusable. First reports don’t give much more info. The video feed shows the rocket trying to maneuver to the remain completely vertical right before landing, which is probably an indication of some minor issue in addition to too much speed.

A few more tries and then success and then a radical drop in the cost of space flights.

4/15 – Behind the Black – Why SpaceX’s first stage failure is really a magnificent success – Longer video of landing show the rocket was not maintaining straight vertical position. Thus it was wobbly when touching down, fell to the side, and exploded. That is progress. Continue reading “More good stuff on open frontiers – 4/17”

More good stuff on the open frontier of technology – 3/26

Some fun articles on how pastries are made, a new way of looking at the phrase “Kodak moment”, and there are more challenges to the commercial use of drones than just the new regulations.

How Hostess makes Twinkies and Cupcakes:

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=UvK5u0mRSms]

3/17 – How’s this for a major change in the way your advertising tag line is interpreted? My friend John Bredehoft sent the following tweet:

From Continue reading “More good stuff on the open frontier of technology – 3/26”

Primer on Bitcoins and Cryptocurrencies

The Wall Street Journal features a brief debate today asking Do Cryptocurrencies Such as Bitcoin Have a Future?

If you haven’t thought about the idea of Bitcoins much and don’t know what cryptocurrencies are, the Yes and No positions will provide a lot of brain expanding ideas. If you have pondered the issue enough to sorta’ kinda’ have an answer to the question, you may still find the article to be worth a read. If you already have a position, check out the arguments from the other side.

More good stuff on the open frontier of energy – 2/25

New frontiers are rough and tumble places. The energy revolution is proving to be no exception.

A few recent articles about crude oil and natural gas which I found interesting:

2/19 – Nature – Study finds relatively low emissions of methane from major US gas fields / After a series of alarming reports, scientists estimate leak rate of about 1% for three major US gas formations – Study by team from University of Colorado Boulder estimates that methane emissions in three major gas fields, (Haynesville, Fayetteville, and Marcellus) averages about 1% of gas that is produced. Range is from 0.18%-0.41% in Marcellus to 2.1% in Haynesville and 2.8% in Fayetteville. Average of 1% is in line with industry and EPA estimates and dramatically less than the 1.5% many critics claim.

2/9 – Wall Street Journal – Oil-Price rebound Predicted – Continue reading “More good stuff on the open frontier of energy – 2/25”

More good stuff on the open frontiers – 2/25

A few articles on technology, energy, and publishing that are worth a read and a brief comment.

Publishing

2/10 – Megan McArdle at Bloomberg View – You Want Advice? Don’t Ask Journalists – Journalism as a career path is going through savage turmoil. Want to write in-depth about an industry or topic? She suggests going to work in that industry and find some writing do to there. Then you can go back to journalism if a great opportunity surfaces or your new industry collapses.

Education

2/11 – Chronicle of Higher Education – Meet the New, Self-Appointed MOOC Accreditors: Google and Instagram –

Continue reading “More good stuff on the open frontiers – 2/25”

More indications of the battle between free enterprise and regulation in Washington’s recreational marijuana market

A reader pointed me toward this report from CNBC: Washington has more pot than it can smoke.

Feels like I hit a jackpot in watching the battle between free enterprise and crushing regulation. Follow along with me as I highlight the story with editorial comments on capitalism and regulation.

You may want to get a fresh cup of coffee. This will be along article.

Why so much discussion?

Why am I spending so much time writing about medical marijuana? As a general matter I don’t give a hoot about this marketplace because I have zero interest in this or any other market for intoxicants.

The medical marijuana markets are a natural experiment in a small, separately visible, newly created market and the impact regulation has on the development of that sort-of-legal industry.

Opportunities to see whether regulations strangle an industry are so limited everywhere else in the economy because other markets are large, well-developed, complex, intertwined, and have already adjusted to regulation.

With medical marijuana we can watch a brand-new industry adjust to brand-new regulations.

Back to the article.

There is apparently a huge excess supply of recreational marijuana over demand in Washington State.

Continue reading “More indications of the battle between free enterprise and regulation in Washington’s recreational marijuana market”

Mr. “Worlds far away”, please let me introduce Mr. “Natural experiment in heavy-handed regulation”.

I have multiple interests on this blog. As is extremely obvious, I have been captivated by the energy revolution created by horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. Have also been fascinated by the wide open frontiers of education, publishing, private space exploration, energy, and technology in general.

There are at least two other threads. First, dark worlds far away I’ll never visit, such as selling drugs and sundry other illegal stuff on the net (called “dark nets”). Another thread is the watching how much heavy-handed regulation is dragging down the newly legal industry of recreational marijuana.

Just like the closing scenes of Ghostbusters, those two threads have touched each other and merged.

Continue reading “Mr. “Worlds far away”, please let me introduce Mr. “Natural experiment in heavy-handed regulation”.”

More good stuff on the open frontier of technology – 2/18

A few articles on the amazing things going on the in wide open tech frontier. Video of building an airplane. Potential for blockchain (which is the tech behind Bitcoin), we are all moving toward being entrepreneurs, and FAA’s draft rules on drone use.

1/7 – BBC – The world’s biggest ship – for 53 days – The Globe can carry 19,100 of the standard 20 foot containers. That’s equal to 4,550 of the usual container you see pulled on a big rig on the freeway. It is the largest cargo ship on the sea. It weighs in at 186,000 gross tons.

It only takes a crew of 23 to operate this ship, which shows how automated it is. The engine is so efficient that this ship uses 20% less fuel per container than a ship that can hold 10,000 TEU (I think that is the abbreviation).

Boeing – Time lapse video of airplane construction – hattip BehindTheBlack blog.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&x-yt-cl=84838260&v=SE71NJl-naY&x-yt-ts=1422327029]

1/22 – TechVibes – How Technology Behind Bitcoin Could Transform Accounting As We Know It – Great article providing background on blockchain, which is the core technology behind Bitcoin. Good brain stretcher on where blockchain could go.

Continue reading “More good stuff on the open frontier of technology – 2/18”

Category: Change around us