At the RSA Conference in San Francisco last week, security vendors pitched their next generation of security products, promising to protect customers from security threats in the cloud and on mobile devices. But what went largely unsaid was that the industry has failed to protect paying customers from some of today's most pernicious threats.
When it comes to civil liberties, the Obama administration has come under fire for often mirroring his predecessor’s practices surrounding state secrets, the Patriot Act and domestic spying. There’s also Gitmo, Jay Bybee and John Yoo.
Now there’s DNA sampling. Obama told Walsh he supported the 18 states, including the federal government, that have varying laws requiring compulsory DNA sampling of individuals upon an arrest for crimes ranging from misdemeanors to felonies. The data is lodged in state and federal databases, and has fostered as many as 200 arrests nationwide, Walsh said
Barak Obama - the unholy marriage of Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush.
The idea of an open ebook format that works on any reader sounds really nice. And in some cases, if you pay really really close attention, it's true. That open format thing actually can work for you. But the reality? You're pretty much going to be stuck with the books you buy in one device working only in that same ecosystem, or at least hoping and praying for an assortment of proprietary reader apps to appear on all your devices. Now, where'd I put that copy of Infinite Jest? Was it in my Kindle library, my B&N library or my iBooks library?
This would be why I've basically given up on ebooks.
I see two related kinds of systems thinking at work here. One engages with an information system in order to marshal data. Another engages with a business process — and with the people who implement that process — in a way that leverages the data, reduces process friction, and also reduces interpersonal friction.
These are basic life skills that everyone should want to master. If we taught them broadly, and if everyone learned them, then this sort of mastery wouldn’t attract the geek label. But we don’t teach these skills broadly, most people don’t learn them, and the language we use isn’t our friend. If systems thinking is geeky then only geeks will be systems thinkers. We can’t afford for that to be true. We need everyone to be a systems thinker.
