Article
European Union competition watchdogs announced their investigation, after smaller companies accused Google of "unfavourable treatment" of their services in both unpaid and sponsored search results, the crucial listings that make the web navigable.
Oh, I just have to wade in here with my experience, even though lately I seem to be wandering all over the place. I really seem to be heading for a manic-counter-reaction shutdown! Anyway, I love Google, with their free support of my blog, and I use their stuff all the time. But, they are absolutely ruthless and nasty when it comes to their core business of serving up sleazy ads. I ran into that when I kept making fun of their ads while raking in wine money on Adsense. But they slammed me down, and banned me for life, even though I promised that next time I'd be really, really good!
So, I have this intellectual blog, and am not making a penny from it! I read somewhere that only sleazy blogs make money, especially anything to do with making money, or losing weight. I just had a guy offer me $100 to inject a piece of link spam in one of my articles. The fact that it had the stilted English of a Nigerian scam, gave me pause.
So Mr. Google, I still love you! I hope the Euros don't beat you up too much, but you can probably afford to the clear up the national debt of Ireland all by yourself!
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
New Madrid States Develop Scenarios for M6.0 Earthquake
Article
Middle Tennessee residents would see chimneys collapsing and structural cracks in older buildings, but they would feel the loss of power most.
"We'd be plunged into darkness, some of us without feeling the quake," Heidt said, as downed power lines and collapsed stations shut down electricity to 2.6 million in the eight states.
"All communications would be out. All air travel would be out as the FAA air control would go down. All rail travel would fail. Ports would shut down; oil and natural gas pipelines could be off line."
Middle Tennessee residents would see chimneys collapsing and structural cracks in older buildings, but they would feel the loss of power most.
"We'd be plunged into darkness, some of us without feeling the quake," Heidt said, as downed power lines and collapsed stations shut down electricity to 2.6 million in the eight states.
"All communications would be out. All air travel would be out as the FAA air control would go down. All rail travel would fail. Ports would shut down; oil and natural gas pipelines could be off line."
And this is just an M6, which is a reasonable scenario for Toronto. They have braced some electrical systems, but the whole valley is mud soup which amplifies things by 10-100 times. Southern Ontario could do something with all those old sub-stations around Hamilton...
Monday, November 29, 2010
The Diplomatic Facebook and Technology
Geofish quote: "Technology is not kind to bureaucracies"
This Wikileaks episode accurately parallels my experience with the old company, when the new internet technology became available. Apparently, all this diplomatic crap came from the equivalent of a diplomatic Usenet or Facebook. Everybody and their dog had access, and could store it all on their laptop unencrypted. It's probably been released a zillion times.
This is exactly what happened with the companies, except that there was no Wikileaks, only lawyers. For a company, all of this can be released with one lawsuit. Many new companies had engaged in a internal internet free-for-all. Our company was also at the leading edge of this, thanks to me. So what happened then? They clamped down, and no information was available on any channel. No emails, no colourful language, no analysis, no brains. Everything was done on private channels, with a different story down each one! I remember the IT department was telling one story to the techies, and a different one to the execs. Nobody made any decisions in meetings, because that would be recorded in the minutes. So, it was all private, and all decisions appeared arbitrary.
What happened? -- Total 'gut' governance. You can see the results. (Niagara Tunnel)
Does it have to be this way? Is there any way to have reasonably open discussion, but in a closed sphere? I don't think so, since all communication has to be decrypted to be read, and then this can be stored in a 10,000 email inbox by your typical busy power-person. If the US goes completely private-verbal-channel, then we are doomed!
You can think of technology ideas - closed tablet viewers with no storage - custom encryption to each recipient, etc. Any suggestions?
This Wikileaks episode accurately parallels my experience with the old company, when the new internet technology became available. Apparently, all this diplomatic crap came from the equivalent of a diplomatic Usenet or Facebook. Everybody and their dog had access, and could store it all on their laptop unencrypted. It's probably been released a zillion times.
This is exactly what happened with the companies, except that there was no Wikileaks, only lawyers. For a company, all of this can be released with one lawsuit. Many new companies had engaged in a internal internet free-for-all. Our company was also at the leading edge of this, thanks to me. So what happened then? They clamped down, and no information was available on any channel. No emails, no colourful language, no analysis, no brains. Everything was done on private channels, with a different story down each one! I remember the IT department was telling one story to the techies, and a different one to the execs. Nobody made any decisions in meetings, because that would be recorded in the minutes. So, it was all private, and all decisions appeared arbitrary.
What happened? -- Total 'gut' governance. You can see the results. (Niagara Tunnel)
Does it have to be this way? Is there any way to have reasonably open discussion, but in a closed sphere? I don't think so, since all communication has to be decrypted to be read, and then this can be stored in a 10,000 email inbox by your typical busy power-person. If the US goes completely private-verbal-channel, then we are doomed!
You can think of technology ideas - closed tablet viewers with no storage - custom encryption to each recipient, etc. Any suggestions?
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