Was clustering my themes for the future of this blog. Came up with:
[Sizes, colours, or text sizes not very reflective of the attention the various subjects will get]
Low sophistication tool, eh? Never mind. Do mind, to comment. On the various things that would need to be added. As yes I know, I have left much out of the picture, for brevity purposes. But will want to hear whether I missed major things before I miss them, in next year’s posts. Thank you!
And, for the latter,
[Bah-t’yó! indeed]
Category: Wired / Tired / Expired
To watch: Firebase
Was tipped via this article. Firebase to be the next thing. Promising, in its a tempo development; seems to be one element of what the world needs right now in terms of moving forward, innovation. Though maybe it may remain out of sight for most consumers, businesses may build a whole new, upgraded set of tools for users on top of this data handling platform.
And be better at using your data than just flat invasive (sic) analysis. The battle field will be compliance with (new) EU privacy regulations. E.g., re transparency of the controllers and processors; that will be a tad more difficult to pull off than now.
Though entirely your opinion on this development now being in the hands of Big G.
Anyway, again from here:
[How many tourists would see this ..? Tar’ga Catalunya]
Wired / Tired / Expired, November 2014 edition
[Weirdo’s – closing at 17:00h … doesn’t time melt for this artist, in this country (sic) …?]
Yes here’s the November edition of my Wired / Tired / Expired jargon watch overviews, a mixed bag again:
| WIRED | TIRED | EXPIRED |
| Yik Yak, Ello, Tsu | The other anons (?) | Whatsapp et al |
| As in this, where as only the very old folks remember fubbuk started. And the other ones, here. | Already not making it past the tipping point? I mean, where are Whisper / Kik / Telegram / WeChat / Line / Viber / Wicker / Threema / surespot ? And this, as elsewhere on this blog. | Mehhh, as in the elsewhere mentioned on the left. |
| Poodle | Beast | Heartbleed |
| Because it’s “not much of an issue” as it affects end point consumers only … OUTRAGE! They are your customers, they are the huge numbers, they are the incapable to cure (also since a fraction of B2C’s doesn’t effing care). If only server-owning companies were the vulnerable, with their very few numbers, their resolution capacity, and their economic interests. | Yeah, yeah, working on it. | Really? Still? |
| Taking action | Taking symbolic action | Taking no action / denying any problems (tie) |
| E.g., by forking out another $250M, not just peanuts. Because pay the peanuts, get the monkeys. | … Or is the previous still only window dressing ..? Maybe some, silent, action might’ve cost much less. Anyway, symbolic action will prove to be the infosec czar’s new clothes. | Legally invalid. Demonstrating incapacity to function normally in today’s business world. |
| Docker | Google Docs | ‘Private cloud’ |
| Just as in this, and this and this – since the latter two. | Into the main stream. | Dumb outsourced data center, virtual or not. With all the privacy ramifications, without scalability (!) or efficiencies. |
| IoT detailing ever further | IoT! Mixed up with Wearables et al. | Cloud, ROSI etc.etc. |
| This kind of details … And these. | Pls learn to discriminate or you mess up the discussions. Which will be, at all levels of abstraction and everywhere, as under W. | Totalitarian Bureaucrat talk. |
| Not caring (to be seen) |
Faux 1% philantropy | Posing |
| Hanging out at http://www.beriestain.com/ for example, just among like-minded self-sufficients (for peace of mind, not needing external recognition). | Clearly, this. | Uggg-gh! |
OK, any suggestions for next month’s edition ..?
Cuffed to happen
This here masterpiece of course was bound to happen. Although with WiFi access, one would wonder about cloud sync / storage …
Oh WiFi hotspot no less…
Pic, again next time.
Top 2000 or 2214 of 2014
OK … There it is: The definitive this year’s Top 2000.
Without argument or doubt, herewith…
First, downloadable in plain Excel, for your own tinker and play, in this file; checked and clean (no subversive content).
Next, a few little notes:
- “That’s odd! The usual numbers 1 to 50 aren’t where they’re ‘supposed’ to be by common standards!” Correct. Because I‘m ‘Rekt. The list is mine; why put the Mehhh songs high up there? They’re in there somewhere, but its my list, my preferences..! yes I do like some almost-forgotten songs better, sometimes much, much better, than the expired old hands.
- Especially.. see the notes, when the clip (much) enhances the song(s). Wouldn’t that mean the song in itself isn’t fully complete ..? No, it means in (since) the age of video, songs with clips (‘integrated’) can much surpass mere songs by themselves, for a cubed sensory experience.
- There’s more than 2000 yes. Because, already after the first 500 or so, determining the relative rankings becomes awkward. Hence, the cut-off would be random …! (why not 2048, that would make more sense in this digital (i.e., binary) age).
- If you would still have some (preferably wacky) songs you miss, please do comment them to me. I’ll see whether I’d want to include them still, or not. Hey, it’s my list so I decide, geddid?
- When dabbling with the Excel file yourself, feel free to play around with the ranking mechanism. What worked for me, was to first split the songs into bins of about 250 size (designate some song to be in the first bin that will end up being ranks 1-250, another song to bin 5, which is around the 1000-1250 mark, etc.), then sizing down bin 1 etc. to 8 smaller bins. Then, numbers 1-50 get a personal treatment one by one to their end rank, the rest gets (got) a random allocation within their bracket. After this, sort and re-apply number 1-whatever. Through this, actual intermediate bin sizes aren’t too important.
- Huh waddayakno, before the below is published, I have a Challenge for you: To give Frizzle Sizzle, Luv and Erik Mesie some rightful places. If you’re Dutch otherwise you might just not get it. Others, may include the B52’s somewhere; Love Shack. And DÖF’s Codo. ☺ and oops forgot Thomas Dolby.
- [Edited to add: I’m now working on an extended list, with the How Could I Have Missed These!? so the total keeps rising. For next year’s list.]
Then, as a long, very long list. With a Moar tag otherwise it would be ridiculous… [i.e., for the complete list in the post, follow the link:]
| Rank | Title | Artist | Notes |
| 1 | Hustle | Vann McCoy | Yes, the original |
| 2 | Easy Livin’ | Uriah Heep | To power it up |
| 3 | Heart Of Gold | Neil Young | Hits the heart |
| 4 | Hide and Seek | Howard Jones | Same, if you listen well |
| 5 | Peter Gunn | Emerson Lake & Palmer | Just for the intro alone |
| 6 | She | Elvis Costello | Personal nostaliga |
| 7 | White Room | Cream | Nicely powerful, doesn’t wear out too easily |
| 8 | 74-’75 (+Video) | Connells | The video sublimates the message |
| 9 | Windowlicker (+Video) | Aphex Twins | Incomplete, as a work of art, without the video |
| 10 | Nice ‘n Slow | Jesse Green | Calm down again |
| 11 | One Of These Days | Pink Floyd | Hidden pearl |
| 12 | Smoke On The Water | Deep Purple | Of course |
| 13 | The Man With One Red Shoe (+Video) | Laurent Garnier | Incomplete, as a work of art, without the video |
| 14 | You’re So Vain | Carly Simon | I think this song is about me! |
| 15 | Dancing Barefoot | Patti Smith | Hidden treasure |
| 16 | Right Here Right Now | Fatboy Slim | Oft forgotten, defined an era |
| 17 | The Great Gig In The Sky | Pink Floyd | Appealing complexity |
| 18 | All I Need | Air | Mindfulness in musical form |
| 19 | Dream On | Aerosmith | Heartburn |
| 20 | You Got To Fight For Your Right to Party | Beastie Boys | Appealing. Simply that. |
| 21 | California Dreamin’ | Mamas & The Papas | |
Players, sides, too many – where’s the (over)view?
Apart from the #ditchcyber aspects, in the (sometimes somewhat sportsy, even) battle about control, or is it temporary one-upmanship, over the world’s communications, so many parties play a role, in such varying sizes, and operating for so many sides, sometimes multiple sides at the same time, sometimes without even knowing that, with the interactions playing at various topics and levels of abstraction and with varying scopes, time horizons, strategies and plans (quality), I could really do with some clarity. Some mapping, interactive or not.
Which all was triggered by this post on yet another singleton developer taking on, inactively!, some well-funded TLA.
Will have to dive into the detail of it all, but know that I’ll end up losing the helicopter view. How many similar developments are out there, known or not? What stages of development, of deployment, of maturity, of starting to crack and leak are they all ..? It’s a hard life, this keeping up thing.
Hence, you deserve:
[As if moulded by a genetic algorithm, Porto]
Balloons, for joy and instruction
Anyone having an inkling of what the Second-Biggest G is about, knows about their conferences, about their ‘magic’ quadrants (despite the debunking of late; apparently one could pay oneself to the top right…), and about their infamous Hype cycle.
[What one needed to fight Siegfried King of the Netherlands of Xanten]
Bam, there’s your daily pic again, not unexpectedly I hope.
Well then. About hype cycles. You know them. And maybe have a laugh. Or not, and study them for the buzzwords you didn’t know yet.
But would you believe them; would you trust the predictions inherent in them? Probably not. And would you check on the predictions of years past ..? Probably not, also.
Turns out… Yours Truly was busy doing that, collecting data all the way back to 2008, and figuring out a way to graph the data. Which didn’t work too smoothly so I wanted to revert to first analyzing the data I had.
Turns out… Someone else already did the collection part, and the analysis part, too. As in this post; recommended reading.
After which I dropped it; no need to analyse. But to synthesize, there’s still a bit on the table:
- Why do so and how many ;-| still ‘believe’ the hype cycles, look into them, and cheer when their favourite hypes are listed, somewhat ‘faithfully’..? Probably because the visualization is so strong, capturing so much essence in one pic. And because apparently people need such guidance ..?
- How come so many of the hypes mentioned, fall flat ..? Or is it a matter of a lot of buck shot in the air, hoping a duck may fly through it ..? Which may also not be a bad thing if this would be clearer, as a caveat. Oh; I already found part of the answer in this Tim Harford post. This one on maps, too.
- Why can’t people pick up the hypes much faster, as there’s obvious business profit in many of them ..? In particular, when so many fall off the radar, one would expect vigilant companies to profit from such new developments falling off their competitors’ radars. Just find a way to make it all work, for which you could even take a couple of years in skunk works, and then reap the benefits. Oh … – of a first mover; which may be too little too short to recoup the ploughing-through-development investments. As first movers are so often outdone by second-and-(much-)improved movers.
And yet, stil I feel there’s much more left on the table than one would need or certainly want to leave there. Once progress is identified, it better be brought on as quickly as possible.
At the scale as things are on the hcycle. Because the ethical ramifications play at a bigger scale. Wouldn’t 2nd-biggest G be interested to make a cycle of those issues ..? Think self-driving cars, ubiquitous/ambient data collection & storage & analysis, Bitcoin-et-al’s subversion of geography-based governments. You name it. A lot to cover &nndash; maybe requiring much more research into what’s at play and how the discussions progress, but still, very much worthwhile I guess. Beyond the tech hype’lets that fall off the bandwagon so easily. Towards prediction proper of where society’/ie’s heading…
Wired / Tired / Expired, October 2014 edition
[Ah, what a pleasant fortress! Córdoba]
Yes here’s the October edition of my Wired / Tired / Expired jargon watch overviews, a mixed bag again:
| WIRED | TIRED | EXPIRED |
| Stealthy introductions | Gartner Hype Cycles | Apple Product (Launch) Events |
| Let the products speak for themselves, let them grow organically around the globe, don’t try in vein (sic) to go viral or so. Be happy with moderate growth as it will be sustainable so much, much longer. | Don’t believe this hype … Will have a separate post on this in the near future. | Nothing new; all hyped and epiphany only for the fast-shrinking few simpleton acolytes left… |
| Smart analysis integrated into regular audits | Process Analysis | Big Data |
| Like, let the process analysis take its place in the Understanding the Business part of any audit. No craze, just helpful in all sorts of directions (including early-on advisory work). | For it’s own sake, no more. Not accepted, not acceptable anymore. | Meh. If less than a yottabyte, not it. Tools in place, again the other 99.9999% of work to be done is human; which is not available in sufficiently intelligent, sufficiently large numbers. Hence, fails beyond the tiniest of anecdotal finds. |
| InfoSec groundswell / tsunami | Hyping APTs, megaleaks | RO(S)I, ISO, et al. |
| No more top-down, just bottom-up, by guerilla even if needed, but with a desperate need to improve by all (not granted) means and authorizations necessary. Doing, not waiting (not) to be allowed. | Oh my! The Sky Is Falling! No more. APTs are still around, yes, vastly more than ever before; megaleaks of the data breach kind and of the Snowden kind, ditto. But nobody listens anymore so why dwell on these? | Ah, the passé methods of yesteryears… Didn’t work. Didn’t fit with InfoSec, do still fit with corporate policy but who cares; if there’s no match, nothing will result. If you still try to match, also nothing (serious in InfoSec terms) will result. |
| 3rd Platform | Software Defined | BYOD/CYOD |
| Where the first was Mainframes, the second one Client/Server. Now // | Just a way to cement the bricks of your architecture. Well, there’s so much work in here if one’d want to do this right but few! the effort, I don’t want to think of this too much. | Done deal. BYOD; CYOD’s not going to fly (discussed earlier, somewhere on this site; use the search, Luke!). |
| Ello | Snapchat | |
| Well, qua hype. Otherwise, very very maybe still… | Nice ‘n quick, but has it gained enough traction ..? | Even your old, 30+ relatives use it now. If (dinosaur) Then (expired). |
| Ideate | Empathy | UX |
| Being creative and coming up with new ideas, needed its separate buzzword. Well, maybe. Will age quickly I guess. | Yes all companies still need it, but none have a clue. | Here I was wondering what all these flimsy design-types had to do with Unix. Turns out, it’s user experience – above good design, but stumbling till you accidentally hit something good, isn’t It. Has never been. But is; expired. |
| Don’t care about illegal downloads | Chase the most petty, pityful of “illegal” downloaders only | Push a U2 album |
| Just because your business model doesn’t depend on levying silly huge distribution costs. | You know, trying to wring millions out of the poor that otherwise would not buy scrap from you, while you know the damages are 99.999% into the lawyer’s pockets only. | Ah, the FAIL …! This deserves a (cultural) backlash flogging by the billions (yes) that weren’t interested… |
| Locally produced, biodynamic even but without the zeal | Super foods | Don’t Care |
| Yes one can eat/drink healthily but don’t need the fanatism. Just somewhat less, quite a bit healthier produced (full supply chain including externalities), and varied. | Quod non; as proven over and over again. After so many, many failed attempts, don’t numbly try again; you’ll fail for sure. | Eating all the preservatives and sweeteners, too much of it all, just isn’t ‘permissible’ anymore. |
| Decently colourful | Normcore bland | Grey all the way |
| Yes even in Fall/Autumn, there’s many colours (not colors) that fit the season and are cheerful and bright. | It already looks formless, has the colours to match: Why? | Duh, that was last year’s one big great miss without purpose. |
OK, any suggestions for next month’s edition ..?
Cycle comments and questions
A certain commercial advisory club still releases its hype cycle. Which is good news; to have some authority with some authority (your mileage may vary) providing us with some comprehension and comprehensiveness [OK I’ll stop now] about the What’s Buzzworthy.
Still, being … in the field / Dutch / obnoxious, pick any; I’d like to comment…:
(Here’s the August version from … somewhere; ™ and © or what is it, acknowledged)
- Virtual Personal Assistants – 5 to 10 years out (of the plateau of productivity) ..? That’s optimistic ..!
- Brain-computer interface: If one would consider this to be about ‘intelligence’ connection, then maybe. But there’s also connections like hearing, et al., where a 5 to 10 year span may be on the ‘long’ side.
- Human augmentation: See the previous. Or aren’t definitions sufficiently orthogonal?
- Affective computing: Hm, optimists.
- Neurobusiness: Same.
- IoT: Yes, at a hype peak. Maybe (much) sooner, to be at the plateau.
- Cryptocurrencies: Hoping for a swifter spread and adoption…
- Big Data may be further down the slope already. Or is that from where I / we are ..?
- Gamification, augmented reality: Hopefully and quite possibly, already reality somewhat earlier.
- The rest of the bunch … will they not come sooner ..? Of shift shape (‘pivot’) to be unrecognizable from their today’s hype labels soon?
- And a final one: Would anyone have a similar overview of … one year, five and ten years back? Just to see what happen in the meantime; to establish a ballpark reliability figure. Would be fun, too.
I’ll leave you with this’all. Your comments are welcome(d). If you like to dream.
Pops off the Top
To get you in the mood, and involved, please check out the longlist of songs eligible for my [emphasis by author] Top 2000 Of All Times (link to clean Excel here).
Yes,
- I’ll have to prune a bit, there’s more than 2000 now;
- They’re sorted alphabetically on Artist so far, yes, yes. But my next thing to do is to recursively bin the lot into shrinking bin sizes, you know, like a good algorithmically sound sorter would;
- If there might be songs you miss on the list, please comment with your suggestions. Which are totally non-binding as the list is mine (make your own, feel free to copy the Excel and adapt / deteriorate) so don’t be put off if your wacky addition(s) don’t make it to the final list;
- Most importantly, if there’s things (songs) on the list you’d deem ridiculous, you may be right. But They’re my choice…
And the usual pic:
[Way back from the 60s, would still be Good if built today like this]
To get you in the mood, check out this random sample…
| Titles | Artist |
| Donna | 10CC |
| Dreadlock Holiday | 10CC |
| I’m Not In Love | 10CC |
| The Things We Do For Love | 10CC |
| The Wall Street Shuffle | 10CC |
| Me So Horny | 2 Live Crew |
| I’m On Fire | 5000 Volts |
| Aquarius / Let The Sunshine In | 5th Dimension |
| Chiquitita | ABBA |
| Dancing Queen | ABBA |
| Eagle | ABBA |
| Gimme Gimme Gimme | ABBA |
| Knowing Me Knowing You | ABBA |
| Mamma Mia | ABBA |
| Money, Money, Money | ABBA |
| S.O.S. | ABBA |
| Summer Night City | ABBA |
| Super Trouper | ABBA |
| Take A Chance On Me | ABBA |
| The Winner Takes It All | ABBA |
| Voulez-Vous | ABBA |
| Waterloo | ABBA |
| All Of My Heart | ABC |
| Back in Black | AC/DC |
| Hells Bells | AC/DC |
| Highway To Hell | AC/DC |
| Let There be Rock | AC/DC |
| Shoot to Thrill | AC/DC |
| Thunderstruck | AC/DC |
| Who Made Who | AC/DC |
| Whole Lotta Rosie | AC/DC |
| How Long | ACE |
| Killer | Adamski ft. Seal |
| Amazing | Aerosmith |
| Crazy | Aerosmith |
| Dream On | Aerosmith |
| Dude Looks Like a Lady | Aerosmith |
| … | … |
| Good Vibrations | Beach Boys |
| I Can Hear Music | Beach Boys |
| Sloop John B | Beach Boys |
| Tears in the morning | Beach Boys |
| Wouldn’t It Be Nice | Beach Boys |
| Brass Monkey | Beastie Boys |
| Hey Ladies | Beastie Boys |
| Intergalactic | Beastie Boys |
| No Sleep Till Brooklyn | Beastie Boys |
| You Got To Fight For Your Right to Party | Beastie Boys |
| Hey Jude | Beatles |
| While My Guitar Gently Weeps | Beatles |
| Loser | Beck |
| Don’t Forget To Remember | Bee Gees |
| How Can You Mend A Broken Heart | Bee Gees |
| How Deep Is Your Love | Bee Gees |
| I Started A Joke | Bee Gees |
| Jive Talkin’ | Bee Gees |
| … | … |
| Play That Funky Music | Wild Cherry |
| Lion In The Morning Sun | Will And The People |
| Het Dorp | Wim Sonneveld |
| Live And Let Die | Wings |
| CREAM | Wu Tang Clan |
| Gravel Pit | Wu Tang Clan |
| Protect Ya Neck | Wu Tang Clan |
| Making Plans For Nigel | XTC |
| Close To The Edge | Yes |
| I’ve Seen All The Good People | Yes |
| Owner Of A Lonely Heart | Yes |
| Roundabout | Yes |
| Yours Is No Disgrace | Yes |
| 7 Seconds | Youssou N’Dour & Neneh Cherry |
| If I Can’t Have You | Yvonne Elliman |
| In The Year 2525 | Zager & Evans |
| Hair | Zen |
| Gimme All Your Lovin’ | ZZ Top |
| La Grange | ZZ Top |
| Legs | ZZ Top |
| Sharp Dressed Man | ZZ Top |
Sorry wasn’t able to find any good Zzz and the Zzzzzs songs… Now get going and come forward with your extension suggestions …!
