DOD Open Technology Development Guide Released!
The DOD’s second Open Technology Development Roadmap has been released: “Open Technology Development: Lessons Learned and Best Practices“. It’s a handbook for …
SCAP: Computer Security for the Rest of Us
I’m setting up a new computer. I get through the registration screens, install my software, change my wallpaper, and everything’s working fine. …
The government doesn’t look good naked.
So 19 months into the Open Government Directive, we seem to have a backlash. The government has spent millions of dollars collecting, …
Larry Lessig is Susan B. Anthony
I think I was a surprised as anyone when I heard that Larry Lessig was stepping away from Creative Commons. It seemed …
Open Source in Government: Who was first?
Brian Purchia of Burson-Marsteller has a post over on GovFresh about the value of open source to unions. His argument pivots on …
Sunlight Week: accountability for earmarks
Earmarks are a notorious vehicle for pork, in part because they lay nestled inside opaque legislative prose. In the FY2010 budget, WashingtonWatch’s …
Education and the iPad’s Architecture of Control
Like most of Jonathan Ive’s work, the iPad is beautiful. Like most of Apple’s work, it also makes me uneasy. I was …
DOD Information Assurance Policy Map
In case you needed more evidence that IA is a chaotic, arbitrary, and disorganized activity in the DOD, this map tries to …
What the Open Government Directive Means for Open Source
On the heels of the Open Government Memo of January 21st, 2009, the Obama Administration has issued the Open Government Directive. The …
Open Courseware Runs Afoul the Free Market
Higher education is now almost absurdly expensive. In an effort to reduce the cost of developing and delivering educational material, there are …
Read My Ramblings About CONNECT
Here’s a really nice writeup on the CONNECT Code-a-thon at iHealthBeat. They quote me a lot, which is what makes it really …
US Courts: Open Source Will Make You Break the Law
Most of you already know about the US Courts’ shameful profiteering through the PACER system. They charge $0.08/page for public court documents …
Washington Monthly on Open Source in Healthcare
If this is the future of computing as a whole, why should U.S. health IT be an exception? Indeed, given the scientific …
Open Source and Open Standards
Open standards are motherhood and apple pie – they ensure a level playing field in which many implementations can compete against each …
Your New CIA Director
Our Constitution defines the rules that guide our nation. It was drafted by those who looked around the world of the eighteenth century and saw persecution, torture, and other crimes against humanity and believed that America could be better than that.
– Leon Panetta, “No Torture. No exceptions.“
Schneier and Kip Hawley
Bruce Schneier is one of the top computer security researchers in the world. Among many other things, he invented the term “security theater.” He interviewed Kip Hawley, the TSA Administrator. It’s a fantastic conversation. It’s serialized here:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/07/conversation_wi_4.html
Project Posner
How do you know you’ve made it to the big time? You get your own google.
Computer In a Wall
Sugata Mitra installed a computer in a concrete wall, facing an alley that local children used as a bathroom. In short time, these mostly illiterate children became computer-literate — downloading MP3s, drawing with MS Paint, and playing games on disney.com.
The children create their own metaphors to do this. To give you an idea of what I mean, a journalist came up to one of these kids and asked him, “How do you know so much about computers?” The answer seemed very strange to her because the kid said, “What’s a computer?” The terminology is not as important as the metaphor. If they’ve got the idea of how a mouse works and that the Internet is [like a wall they can paint on], who cares if they know that a computer is called a computer and a mouse is called a mouse? In most of our classes here at NIIT, we spend time teaching people the terminology and such. That seems irrelevant to me with these children.
