I don't see any way to interpret the NSA mess as strengthening the United
States.
For our research at the Tau Institute, this means we need to take a look at
the Press Freedom Index (PFI) and possibly integrate it (and possibly other
measures) into our algorithms and rankings, because I don't see how a US that
appears to be substantially less unfree than we all thought can be analyzed
in the same light as before.
This will be a semi-complex, semi-tedious process. The factors we integrate
into our research are derived and reported in diverse ways. Our challenge is
to create a composite index that weighs them rationally. Integrating the PFI
will be no different.
Good-bye, America
Whether terrorist attacks have truly been prevented - and could have been
prevented only with the known and still unknown NSA programs - the reality is
that the Fourth Amendment of the Unite... (more)
I've written before about an ongoing software development project with which
I've been recently involved. Its complexities continue to challenge a
development team with architects, programmers, and project managers in
Chicago, Silicon Valley, and the Philippines.
But we're able to keep one aspect of this project simple, thanks to a
cloud-based solution from Orangescape that runs on the Google Apps Engine
(GAE). The program is called KISSFLOW - the "kiss" here plays off a familiar
expression and means "Keep it Simple and Smart."
KISSFLOW has been invaluable so far in allowing us t... (more)
State and regional efforts toward economic development and creating
innovation are often as important as national initiatives. We're starting to
examine some of these with the same eye we've been taking for the past two
years with national environments.
This is not to diminish the importance of a healthy national environment for
technology and economic development; the best local or regional program will
wither on the vine if a nation's roots have gone bad.
On the other hand, strong local and regional programs can serve as beacons to
attract talent and investment to their home co... (more)
Read Sun's Take on "Open AJAX"– Tim Bray Speaks Out
IBM is leading, but apparently not controlling, a bold initiative known as
"Open AJAX" that brings this open-source application development approach to
the forefront of the worldwide i-technology industry.
The Open AJAX initiative does not have a centralized structure or website,
but is rather an idea that is being formally backed by BEA, Borland, the Dojo
Foundation, the Eclipse Foundation, Laszlo Systems, Mozilla Corporation,
Novell, Openwave Systems, Oracle, Red Hat, Yahoo, Zend and Zimbra. A
spokesperson for one of the m... (more)
No, I don't see black helicopters in the sky. And I don't believe in global
conspiracies - I think we humans are far too inept at operating anything
complex over the long haul - and at keeping secrets - to somehow build vast,
global ruling structures.
But I remain highly concerned about privacy, it's alleged absence in the U.S.
Constitution (RIP, Robert Bork, you scoundrel), and how it's been steadily
taken away from us in the era of the web and social media.
I laughed along with the rest of the connected world at the poor young
Facebook-family lass who felt her human dignity was... (more)
Roger Strukhoff is Executive Director of the Tau Institute 
Jim McLane
Walter Hinton
Walt Robertson
Akshat Singh
Chris Shaul
James Meickle
