disruption – Page 11 – Maverisk / Étoiles du Nord

Stay put while moving your address

Lately, there were a number of times I was reminded that for those that still use email (i.e., the overly vast majority of us!), some email addresses have been more stable over time than mere snail street addresses. And, with the different use of email versus the type that it was (derived-)named after, quite some times your ‘stable’ email address is harder to change. Where moving physical home address will easily redirect your mailman’s delivery for a large sway of services (utilities, subscriptions, et al.), such service doesn’t necessarily exist for email.
Not strange. You can move house and then take your email with you. Come to think of it, this is part of the greatness of the OSI model, right?
But strange. Try to ‘move’ (i.e., change) your private email address, that you use for innumerable websites, affiliation subscriptions, socmed profiles, etc.etc., and … you’re hosed. In particular, when you don’t have access to your former email address e.g., when switching employers (wasn’t a good idea to begin with, even in about-all of the world where using company equipment still leaves you with all privacy protection you’d need, excepting the corner of the world that their figurehead took out of the world’s developments so will revert to backwater, developing country-terrain), the confirm-change email may be unreachable as you can’t login to your old mail account… No solution provided anywhere.

So, as easy as it should be to move physically and have your physical address changed in public record systems, as easy it should be to keep some email address(es) that are used to identify you in person even when you’ve moved ISP…
Question to you: Is this covered under the “Must be able to move” hardcore requirement always under the GDPR..? *All* data should be coughed up in a machine-readable format to be processed in similar manner by some other service provider. That goes for email services too, automatically, so how will the (your!) sender/receiver addresses still be valid when you’ve moved ..?
If the latter works, then any service provider ID in your email address must work on any other provider’s systems, or your former is liable for up to 2% of global (sic) turnover. Quite a (damages avoidance) budget, to make things work…

Oh, and:

[Take a seat; not your address of any kind; Dublin Castle]

The Legend of Knuth the Agile

Once upon a time in a land far, far off-shore to today’s centers of economic, political of civilised-society gravity, before DevOps was a thing even, there was a great algorithm champion warrior named Knuth. Unlike his fellow programmer clansman, that coded for ~~fun and profit~~ deep innovation and peer recognition [f&p came only decades i.e. ‘centuries’ later; ed.], in a world that was barren of bad code but still inhospitable to what later would become hero geeks and nerds (for whom this was still obvious), Knuth was just that little bit less quickly-footed in his subject matter, earning him the nickname The Agile, just to deride his profound work.

Because, you see, he was a man of honour and clean algorithms, two things that in his days were nearly the same. And he was in favour of solving things with fundamental parts. Not ‘process steps’ or so – how would he laugh at those that propose that, these days. Nor happenstantially bundled ‘sprints’ of fast (hacked, in its profound meaning) coding – though extreme coders live on here and there, not given the honour and credit they deserve.
But real, standardised, tried and tested (even in a semi- or fully mathematical way) logically consistent actual process steps. But then, he understands that the real warrior body (brains) belong only to those that have honed the warrior spirit, have grinded and polished their skills over decades to shine like blank sheet metal of the finest alloys. So, not like ‘hey I had this one-year (??, mostly one-week or so ..!) course in agile programming now I’m a l33t h@x0r’ kind of pre-puerile nonsense.

Well, dear readers, you know how times can fly and how reputations can change overnight. So it happens that his nickname suddenly meant something else. No more poetic escapes of sparse code and clean, logic-based algorithm library linking and calling/returning at the side of the waterfall. development method. No more re-use of the tried and tested. No more frozen waterfalls at all, due to scope creep leading to progress-temperature drops to zero and below, leading to icy atmospheres where nothing works anymore. No more basic weapons training of even knowing how to deploy re-usable code and algorithms…
All we have now, in these days with no more heroes (but the baddies are still out there, everywhere), is/was faint attempts at “patterns”, being of course the latter-day devolution of the very algorithms that made Knuth the hero he was. Is.

And then, DevOps came to the scene. If only Knuth were still in his prime, he would know what to do…

Plus:

[Only in such art is extremely precisely applied sloppiness a virtue …! Gemeentemuseum Den Haag]

Chasing the GDPR hippo

As I was reminded of the ‘Kill the Hippo’ meme, I realised its application is valid in specific circumstances, too.
Where the Hippo is of course here. And the application that I was thinking of, is here.
Not this one, that may stay where appropriate (which is much less than always)…

No, your Usual Suspect isn’t the CEO or whatever, and suggesting the CISO is just a pun, but … the lawyer(s) involved…
All you have to do, is take a look at their billing rates. And at the hippo-original abbrev meaning (sometimes, even the original meaning outright qua looks but in the most-expensively-dressed-in-the-room version, hopefully?) — pointing at the need to not listen to them as the most effective way to deal with the issue(s) at hand since they may on occasion (50,1%++) have the least useful insights to bring to the table…

Oh well. I’ll leave you with:

[Dead straight, according to your lawyer. Cromhouthuis Ams]

Where’s F Fatigue ..?

Considering the fatigue seen everywhere re fake news, about all that is out there is called into question.
Which led me to search for a meme that just swirled into my mind: ‘Facebook Fatigue’. Boy did I think that could be quite some recent development, with the brag about ‘users’ (meant to mean ‘addicts’; the brag being towards ad salesmen as street corner suppliers, and investors as proceeds rippers ..?) being at something over 1.8B or so.
Boy was I wrong. Already in 2008 … And 2012, and 2015, and since …

When you try the same thing over and over again, and expect different results, you will!

Update later: This here; QED.

Now, where did ‘Newconomy’ go ..?

So there is hope. And there is:

[Paint your castle – is such a hass’le; Dublin C]

Effective presentations

May be elsewhere.
Recently delivered a ppt full of bullets and text [hold it; see below], to gather response and feedback. Put in quite some effort, like two days’ driving to the venue, including overnight stay, lunch and dinner costs, transport expense, sweating away at the location (the venue was only a couple of °s cooler than the 30°+ outside) with an extra night stay at the location, plus lunches, dinners, and a return trip of two days’ driving, incl overnight stay, lunch and dinner costs, transport expense, et al (sic).
For … well, not any sort of renumeration or token gift, even. Not, like, a promisingly large room turning out to be less than 40% (rounded way up) filled.

Which wouldn’t be so bad, if suitable, useful feedback had been received, or only publicity gained e.g., through (live or late) tweeting, LI mention or so.

But now, all I got was not even the T-shirt; all I got was 0. As in: zero.
Yes that’s the number of tips (let alone useful ones), or tweets about the pres (let alone far out reaching ones). I did disclaim the fullness of the slides (sic) to give impressions of all the content delivered (did not read them line by line, mind you), and yes I did before, during and after ask for feedback… Only some old hand pre-known friendlies with form/delivery compliments.

Oh well; at least now I know not to submit for free anymore. And/or, is this the beginning of the Classroom Learning Is Dead for trade conferences ..?
Yes, sponsor opportunities will make conferences et al, still feasible economically, but not when attendee rates will go down. Yes, online webinars et al are still bandwidth-challenged and most often, sketchily interactive at best – which is an opportunity for TEDx style beautifully told fairy tales but not for the ability to interrupt and, in particularly necessary very often with these kind of powering-on talks, correct huge biases, false assumptions, and certainly pastiches of logical reasoning, nor for feedback or pointer tips.

So, where are the (affordable…!) online conferences that are worthwhile to visit?
Not 2-way IRL (‘F2F’ like in the olden days of still today) but virtually – warping the meaning of the latter so far beyond its Original, and not taking it to the limit here but having only the channel un-physicalised, even; where is total two-way VR and/or AR in this ..?

Oh well, and:

[Still only had time for ‘drive-by’ i.e. walk-by tourism…; München]

AI learning to explain itself

Recently, there was news again that indeed, ABC (or The ‘Alphabet’ Company Formerly Know As Google) was developing AI that could improve itself.
O-kay… No sweat, or sweat, qua bleak future for humankind, but …
Can the ‘AI’ thus developing itself, maybe be turned first to learn how to explain itself ..? Then, this [incl link therein!] will revert to the auditors’ original of second opinions … Since the self-explanatory part may very well be the most difficult part of ‘intelligence’, benefitting the most from the ( AI improving itself )² part or what?

And:

[Improving yourself as the imperative; Frank Lloyd Wright’s Beth Sholom at Elkins Park, PA]

2FA is illegal!

Just when you thought the solutions to your eternal (not) pwd problems were getting mature enough to deploy – nudged to annoyance by all the vendor FUD – and you forgot the solution is totally easy and already in your infra everywhere, you will find … 2FA is declared illegal …

Oh …, it turns out to concern the party drug kind only, not 2FA but 4-FA. Like, here. Phew!
But stil, kids, don’t rely on 2FA either; help users reduce complexity not hinder ’em!

Oh, and:

[When all sober and straight would have been Boring; Lille]

Surge ethiconomics

There was already quite some debate about surge pricing, in particular re [illegal] taxi services.
What I missed so far, are discussions about the economic or raher ethical character of abusing surges and their price tag instabilities. Like, how would you depict such developments in price elasticity graphs; shooting up and down on-curve, and curve shifts included. Is orderly society permissive of such hog cycle disruptions ..? [Term pointing at the characterisation of the CEOs that not want to see anything in/human in what they do]
The asymmetry (shooting) on the curve, is market imperfection; the curve shifts in the long run, are better captured by ‘classical’ economics. Again: the ethical ramifications aren’t value-free (tauto), aren’t of uninterest to anyone that values freedom — as that requires markets to function, which is done by regulating them. The latter is proven so many times I don’t even want to discuss it here.

Stock markets, and stocks, are capped qua max change (volatility spikes), the most extreme competitive markets out there;
why wouldn’t other markets have the same ..?

Your contributions in comments, please… Plus:

[Stable, safe, cleared for use; Madrid]

Autoflexelec

Oh (not like here though supported) when will EVs be useful? Like, being available with diesel range (1000kms, seriously! I seriously need that) and station car luggage space (660/1950ℓ – yes really need that, too), at a fair price (which is 2nd hand, not even a fifth of what 40%-featurematching EVs go for today).

No, I’m not going electric today because EVs will get better in a couple of years. I’m not going to waste buckets of money and opportunities by sitting out those years with a severely underperforming car. If others do that; that’s their bad decisions.
But wait; there’s hope around the corner (of the Cobra, Málaga–Ronda and v.v. kind): When we have electric (?) autonomous trucking sometime soon (like Big T is proposing or already developing), the results might be scaled down to anything in the range, in due time. And/or current auto-elecs are scaled up considerably. Squashing my own hope, this will take a couple of years.

By lack of proper alternatives, trying to do away with fully functional transport, is an attempt to hinder the due functioning of society; to be categorised as illegal.

I rest my case. And:

[Once upon a time, in a world far, far away (i.e., not so far Valencia), training was Fashionable]

Bringing back symmetry/-ia

Some issues, aspects of interest, collided a couple of weeks ago.
Macron’s team with their skillful double-cross deceit in the ‘leakage’ of election-sensitive info (!read the linked and weep over your capabilities re that, or click here for (partial?) solutions or others or devise your own). One down, many to go; Win a battle, not win a war yet.
In unrelated (not) news, what are the tactics used IRL to actively engage in pre-battle tactics? Can we plant our own systems with scar (?) tissue i.e. fake immunised (for us!) / unused information that is weaponised with trail collecting (or only source-revealing) capabilities, like shops and private persons can get “DNA” spray paint thus called because it’s uniquely coded so is identifiable and traceable? Can we harbour ‘hidden sleeper (?) cells’, pathogens i.e. malware, that doesn’t affect us but when ‘leaked’ to an adversary’s environment / stolen, oh boy does it become virulently active and destruct? (Silent) tripwires, boobytraps where are you?
How far behind the curve are the general public (us, I) with intel on developments in these areas? If the French used some of this stuff (using is revealing, qua tactics, unfortunately) certainly others would have considered the methodologies involved. Raises questions indeed, as were around, about whether or not the cyrillic traces were planted into WannaCry1.0 or left there in error. [There’s no such thing as perfect Opsec but this would severely hurt some involved at the source / would’ve cared better, probably.]

Just so we can get a better view on the balance being shaken up so vehemently, between asymmetric simpleton hacks [the majority you know (like, you actually can learn about; the real majority you may not hear about) of big organisations with their huge attack surfaces and attackers only needing one pinhole] and more-or-less regaining-symmetric nation-state attacks against each other (all against all) where the arms’ race of tooling now is so out of balance.

Would like to know, for research purposes only of course, really.

We’ll see. And:
[Yes that’s real gold dust on the façade hiding in plain sight, but you wouldn’t be able to scrape it off. Would you? Toronto]