Hello to those who still view my blog.  I have been away for a long while and since have progressed into a different arena.  My interest in in Holographic Weather Analysis and Prediction hasn't waned, it has just been put aside for the time being (which could be a while).  I had forgotten about this blog page since I have finished with school (it was actually a class project).  I happened to be going through my Lap-top getting ready to transition to a newer system, came across this and began reminiscing.  I may re-start my blog, but I am not exactly sure what to talk about.  Although holography has advanced at a great rate I still feel that the ability to tie it into weather analysis and forecasting has not quite come to the point where the two can merge or ever will.  So, I have put it on hold on my part and hopefully technology will catch up and we will see this come to fruition.  Who knows, the weather forecasting arena is changing rapidly and may surpass what I had envisioned to move towards.  Meanwhile I'll just dabble with my forecasting and continue my work in the computer system management area in which I currently work.

 

If you still look at these blogs from my earlier studies thank you.

 

I will check back once in a while since I now know that it is still active to see if there are any comments.

Technology's Promise: Transition to a Sustainble Wold - Global Warming

My analysis on a forecast from the text Technology’s Promise, is that what we see here is I believe a Social enigma.  Scientists want to do the right thing but politically they are being strangled by the threat of losing funding by going against a politically charged issue.  This being a highly charged debate is something that can only be settled by removing the monetary gains pursued by some individuals and letting scientists proceed with studies using new technological advancements that are not biased or socially coerced. 

Global Warming – caused by the human producing an increase of CO2 into the atmosphere. 

This term has always bothered me.  Being associated with meteorology for over 20 years I am strongly against this term.  I agree that there is climate change it is a cycle that the earth goes through and not really influenced directly by mankind inducing CO2 into the atmosphere. I do however agree that mankind does cause pollution and we need to do something about it, but not global warming.

Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT’s Department of Meteorology states the following:

“Carbon dioxide has little to do with global warming

A)   this is certainly not the hottest period in Earth's history
B) global warming has essentially nothing to do with carbon dioxide
C) the global warming/CO2 charts show that warming occurs first and causes increased atmospheric carbon dioxide, the opposite of what we're told
D) 99% of all carbon dioxide is caused by decaying plants and ocean activity
E) human activity has pretty much no influence on global temperatures
F) cooler air, not warmer, causes increased floods and hurricanes
G) the ice caps are growing and shrinking like they always have, and the ozone layer is just fine
H) "Big Oil" is making a fortune from global warming hysteria, they love it
I) There were only about 1000 people on the IPCC panel, and many were lobbyists and politicians, not scientists”

The following video also gives a clearer picture of how politics played into the coining of the phrase Global Warming.  So I hope that around 2014 the nations will step back and take a better look at what is really happening around them and not listen to politicians and media which are trying to use this scare tactic to line their pockets.

The Great Global Warming Swindle (2007)

A forecast or prediction from the futurists and two forces that I believe will affect its success.

Still playing catch up on my posts.

 

Forecast #6:
Lunar-based solar power production was pioneered by David Criswell in 1985 as a way to meet future energy demands. The debate stands as to which is better, Lunar Based Solar power (LSPS) or Solar Power Satellite (SPS) pioneered by Peter Glaser in 1968  both of which energy can be more dependably and inexpensively gathered in Space than on Earth. This clean energy source is capable of delivering the 20 trillion watts of power a year that the Earth’s predicted 10 billion people will require by mid-century.

Two forces that could hinder the production of either of these innovations is.

Space Environmental issues

There is now a lot of space junk in orbit around the earth and adding more Satellites for the SPS system. We do not need to add to this

 

Figure 1 - Space Junk

The other force would be financial feasibility.

The cost of producing a lunar based system would be a hindrance.  1995 predicted costs came to about $1,098.00 per kW It will have most likely tripled in today’s cost. The materials, manpower and transportation costs in 1996 figures would be in the Billions.

 

 

Figure 2 : Lunar Base Solar Production System

Fig from David Criswell’s Solar Power via the Moon: 2002

Ref;

G.L. Kulcinski, Nov 26, 2001, Lecture 35 Lunar Solar Power Station

fti.neep.wisc.edu/neep533/FALL2001/lecture35.pdf

David Criswell, 2002; Solar Power via the Moon,

www.aip.org/tip/INPHFA/vol-8/iss-2/p12.pdf

Web Video & Global Innovation

Coming from a little behind in posting assignments :0) this TED talk is given by Chris Anderson on How web video powers global innovation.

Chris's very interesting talk is about how the web has created what he calls "Crowd Accelerated Innovation"

Take a look and see what you think.

This is a good example of how the forces of social media and technological innovation can be put to use as a somewhat educational venue.  Good in some aspects a little strange in others.

My 30 second video on HWAPs

This weeks assignment was to produce a video of a future innovation.  I have worked with weather and computers for many years and I have been interested in holographics.

I have always envisioned combining the two sciences Holography and Meteorology.  The first picture in the video is of an SDHS system or Satellite Data Handling System. A system I helped pioneer 20 years ago for the DoD's Air Weather Service.

With the help of Iron Man and a little photoshop work, this 30 sec video will,  I hope, show you my vision of future weather analysis using holographic projection - Holographic Weather Analysis and Prediction system (HWAPs). How weather analysis and holographics have progressed and where I believe we could be in the future giving Meteorologists more information to provide more precise forecasts and longer lead times for severe weather warning.



Make your own photo slideshow at Animoto.

New Agora

The New Agora paper states that there are seven modules to the architecture of SDDP which are comprised of 31 component constraints as stated in Schreibman and Christakis’   New Agora: New Geometry of Languaging  and New Technology of Democracy: *The Structured Design Dialogue Process:

1. 6 Consensus Methods: (1) Nominal Group Technique (NGT), (2)

Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM), (3) DELPHI, (4) OPtions Field, (5)

Options Profile, and (6) Trade-off Analysis (Years 1972-1982);

2. 7 Language Patterns: (1) Eelemental observations; (3) Problématique,

(3) Influence tree-pattern, (4) OPtions field pattern, (5) OPtions

profile/scenario pattern, (6) Superposition pattern, and (7) Action plan

pattern (Years 1970-1980);

3. 3 Application Time Phases: (1) Discovery, (2) Designing, and (3) Action

(Years 1989-2001;

4. 3 Key Role Responsibilities: (1) Context—Inquiry Design Team, (2)

Content— Stakeholders/Designers, and (3) Process—Facilitation Team

(Years 1982-2002);

5. 4 Stages of Interactive Inquiry: (1) Definition or Anticipation, (2) Design

of Alternatives, (3) Decision, and (4) Action Planning (Years 1989-1995);

6. Collaborative Software and Facility (Years 1981-1995);

7. 6 Dialogue Laws: (1) Requisite Variety )Ashby), (2) Parsimony (Miller),

(3) Saliency (Boulding), (4) Meaning and Wisdom (Peirce, (5)

Authenticity and Autonomy (Tsivacou), and (6) Evolutionary Learning

(Dye) (Years 2001-2003).

This architecture is built around the basis of the following:

4 Axioms to Assure Sound Foundations for the Science:

·       COMPLEXITY: We live in a world that is very complex.  Most observers are confused.  Social systems design issues are strongly interconnected (Warfield).

·       PARSIMONY: Human cognition & attention is limited.  Human beings are usually overloaded in group design meetings leading to bad designs (Simon).

·       SALIENCY: The field of options in designing social systems is multidimensional. Salient synthesis is difficult (Boulding).

·       ENGAGEMENT: Disregarding the participation of the stakeholders in designing social systems is unethical, and the designs are bound to fail (Ozbekhan).

o   However Stakeholders tend to try and solve a problem before its complexity is fully understood, but how complex is complex?

The Situational Complexity Index is defined as

            DK (N-7) / R (R-1)  where D = (V-5) / (N-5)

N = Number of total observations by all observers

R = Number of observations INCLUDED IN THE PROBLEMATIQUE (Influence Map)

V = Number of observations with 1 or more votes

K = Number of DISTINCT links among observations

D = Divergence or “spread think” of importance votes

_________________________________

7 is the “Miller number” (7 ± 2) “which is the limited individual capacity for short-term processing of information” and 5 is the “Warfield  spread think number”

6 Methods to Build Consensus :

1)     Nominal Group Technique

2)     Interpretive Structural Modeling

3)     DELPHI

4)     Options Field

5)     Options Profile

6)     Trade-off Analysis  

7 Patterns of Graphic Language:

1)     Elemental Observation

2)     Problematique (A mess)

3)     Influence Tree (Root Cause Map)

4)     Options Field

5)     Options Profile / Scenario

6)     Superposition Pattern

7)     Action Plan Pattern  

4 Stages of Interactive Inquiry:

1)     Definition or Anticipation

2)     Design of Alternatives

3)     Decision

4)     Action Planning  

7 Laws of Effective Dialogue

1)     Requisite Variety (Ashby)

2)     Requisite Parsimony (Miller, Warfield)

3)     Requisite Saliency (Boulding)

4)     Requisite Meaning & Wisdom (Peirce)

5)     Requisite Authenticity & Autonomy (Tsivacou)

6)     Requisite Evolutionary Learning (Dye)

Schreibman and Christakis show 6 Laws of Dialogue but

Christakis added a 7^th law in his presentation on Harnessing Collective Wisdom.

7)     Requisite Action (Laouris) 

My area of interest or innovation is in combining meteorology and holographic projection or Holographic Weather Analysis and Prediction system (HWAPs) as I call it.  Using the SDDP method I am considering on using the Delphi approach in building my consensus, with an options/scenario pattern of graphic language; definition and anticipation type inquiry and the requisite evolutionary learning.

New Agora Paper
http://www.harnessingcollectivewisdom.com/pdf/newagora.pdf

Delphi and NGT research models

We were asked to describe the characteristics and differences between the NGT and Delphi models of research. This is my take on the differences, which model I would use and why.

The Classical Delphi model uses the anonymity of the participants allowing them to freely express their opinions without undue social pressures of having to conform to others in the group with decisions bases on merit, rather than who proposes the idea. Whereas, the NGT method limits participants the opportunity to comment on issues that were not covered in surveys and uses focus groups to encourage participants with one or two members that hold strong opinions influencing others and stifling ideas and evaluating factors identified by learners as positive and negative points.

From the readings the NGT method is mainly directed towards the medical field evaluating medical courses. The Delphi method, working with qualitative and quantitative methods seems to be more suited to Information System (IS) research because of its fluidity in its discipline and its flexibility when knowledge about a task is limited. As for which method I would use from what I have read and think understand, the use of a modified Delphi in a closed or open collaboration would depend on the type of research one wants to accomplish. It seems that a closed collaboration would lead to a specific outcome for a specific study whereas an open collaboration would be used as sort of a brainstorming study to provide a generalized idea or direction in which to proceed.


A Modified Delphi Approach to a New Card Sorting Methodology http://usabilityprofessionals.org/upa_publications/jus/2008november/JUS_Paul_Nov2008.pdf

It has been a while but it looks like I will back online. Drop by from time to time and see what I will be doing in the next couple of months. It maybe interesting to a few of you, if you are interested in Socio-Technical Futuring, holographic projection and meteorology.

Privacy preserving cryptographic protocols

This weeks read was about privacy preserving cryptographic protocols.

The common definition of privacy in the cryptographic community limits the information that is leaked by the distributed computation to be the information that can be learned from the designated output of the computation (Benny Pinkas, HP Labs).

This chapter discusses differing protocol frameworks used to achieve this privacy. In Acquisti el al’s:Digital Privacy their definition is a computational function of outputs that are distributed among different participants during online collaboration.

The chapter notes a couple of platforms are in place today that have the goal to provide a privacy-preserving protocol for any possible function:
Secure Multiparty Computation (SMC)
Secure Function Evaluation (SFE)
and goes on to say that it may seem like an impossible task, but general results show that any function that is computable in polynomial time can be computed with polynomial communication.

The chapter goes on to discuss how privacy preserving cryptographic protocols can be applied to differing situations:
Database querying
Distributed voting
Bidding and auctions
Data mining

The Data mining or data warehousing kind of caught my attention because I had to write a white paper on it when it first appeared on the IT table. It was suppose to be the way of the future for storing and locating data quickly and easily. At that time privacy issues were not looked at closely as systems were not as integrated as they are today. Data mining and warehousing fell into the privacy conundrum with the advancements in technology and the widely integrated system structure in place today. It is interesting to see how this is handled by SMC and SFE to provide privacy security.
A couple of approaches were mentioned: Sanitizing Data before making it available and the use of technologies mentioned in the chapter, benchmarking and forecasting, contract negotiations, and rational selfish participants along with the introduction by Lindel-Pinkas method where two parties build a decision tree without either party learning anything about the other.

EM835 Weekly Reading This week from Acquisti et al, Digital Privacy

Uncircumventable Enforcement of privacy via cryptographic Obfuscation

What is it
Obfuscation, in general, describes a practice that is used to intentionally make something more difficult to understand. In a programming context, it means to make code harder to understand or read, generally for privacy or security purposes. A tool called an obfuscatoris sometimes used to convert a straight-forward program into one that works the same way but is much harder to understand.

Basically it is hiding information in plain sight inside computer code or digital data
(or as Bruce Lee might say)The art of hiding without hiding

Brief History
1976 –Diffieand Hellman produced paper on public key cryptology introducing the first public known public key cryptosystem
Gates open letter to hobbyists leads to the first use of obfuscation for copy protection and digital rights management
1986 –Malware’s use of obfuscation is introduced:
Viral Legerdemain -first piece of malware that attempted to conceal its existence
Cascade virus -first piece of malware to use encryption to scramble its contents
Oligomorphism1990 -could change static decryptors
Polymorphism1991 -a method of radically changing how malware conceals itself,
The Mutation Engine 1992 -first ever polymorphic toolkit to enabled neophyte virus
programmers to link their code to an MtE-generated polymorphic object and extend a
normal non-obfuscated virus into a highly polymorphic one
2001 –Study of cryptic obfuscation began:
Virtual black box security which guarantees no other feasible way to access stored passwords

Applications

Security in the beginning was weak and easily broken then came Cryptographic Obfuscation
which was a Stronger security; better than DRM

Digital Rights Management
Most commonly used for protecting data from unauthorized usage but has dismal track
record

Recreational use - International Obfuscated C Code Contests

Obfuscation to Digital PrivacyUsages ;
Protecting Database privacy via Digital Rights Management (DRM), but is weak, easily
broken, okay for blocking a casual hacker
Can introduce serious security vulnerabilities
Cryptographic obfuscation
Providing technological support
As a Virtual Black Box
Real strength –guarantees no other feasible way to access a stored password
But still can be reversed engineered

Obfuscation for Access Control
Provides Point Function Obfuscation: a function that produces a special output from a single
input which may be thought of as a key or password
ex: Password hashing procedure -UNIX

Obfuscation for Group PrivacyPrivacy be enforced by allowing a record to be retrievable only if user can name it precisely
Group Privacy Policy has tradeoffs between Privacy and Utility
More research needed to look into using Heuristic methods to improve efficiency

EM835 reading Beautiful Security - Chapter 6

I had an interesting read this week in the book Beautiful Security by Andy Oram and John Viega. The chapter I had to read and discuss was on Securing Online Advertising. It bought out some interesting and frightful information.
Victims
Users are the most direct for online advertising attacks with Malvertisements, malware, and exploit-laden banner ads.
Ex. Free Ringtones, or quizzes like, Do you know whose lips these are? These seem harmless, but can hold malware that can be installed onto your computer to collect personal information.
Advertisers themselves are victims by being overcharged by ad networks. Then using them as a doorway to your computer as they instill different cost rate schemes to the advertisers like:
CPM – Cost Per Thousand Impressions
CPC – Cost Per Click
CPA – Cost per Action
What can be done to stop this?
· Be aware of what you are about to click on. Ads that offer something too good to be true are great hiding places for malware insertion programs.
· Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and European Consumer Commissioner have been tracking down, uncovering, and handing out fines to those who create and use this form of advertising.

Absence

Again sorry for the down time, have been busy with school work. Hope to have something going again by introducing my doctorate works.

Sorry for the down time on this Blog, but it has taken a back seat to personal issues this past week.

My Daughter's Wedding.

Design and the Social Media

So you want to design a webpage, blog, facebook, or twitter page, here are some guidelines to help you along your way.

Social Network Design: Examples and Best Practices

Design and the Social Media

Here is another piece on design and the social media.

Yes, Your Social Media Strategy Needs Design

David Armano looks at "social media" as a design problem and notes that Wikipedia describes design as;

" The planning that lays the basis for the making of every object or system. It can be used both as a noun and as a verb and, in a broader way; it means applied arts and engineering. As a verb, "to design" refers to the process of originating and developing a plan for a product, structure, system, or component with intention."

So maybe it is time to approach social business by design.

Design and the Social Media

Interesting information from MASHABLE The social Media Guide recognizing what Yochai Benkler said about collective communities in his book on the Wealth of Networks.

If you’re a creative person, there’s no better way to improve your craft than by getting social. You can start by following designers and design blogs on the major social networks, but if you’re looking to really explore others’ work and share your own, design communities are key.

“Society6 is an online community that allows artists to showcase their work, sell prints and find others to collaborate with,” says Mathers. “Behance, This is Central Station, Creattica and Design Taxi are some other great creative communities that I have used that help designers connect and promote their work.”

Like any social network, the value is in sharing. “I upload any recent work I have to Society6 and Behance and use both platforms to interact with other creatives, find people to collaborate with, send and receive feedback, and generally communicate with others in similar industries,” says Mathers. “Both sites, particularly Behance, received a healthy amount of traffic … [they] are an excellent way to gain exposure in front of the right people.”

Design and the Social Media

I see the talk about the use of cartoons in the other blogs so I thought I would jump on the bandwagon; see, influenced by the social media. The article associated with this cartoon, written by Tom Fishburne, offers some good information on the affects social media has on design, and possible legal implications that can occur if not careful, WJS.

Design and the Social Media

A Better Design bears more fruit,

Excerpt from: Bringing Google, Facebook, Twitter together: Third Party Grows Rapidly in 2010

"Who Sets the Terms

A decade or so ago, Google transformed the perceptive of the web by offering the "I'm feeling lucky". This amazing product (at the time) offered a knowing of the "best hit" for a term being searched. In a subtle, but important way, a taxonomy for the web has been introduced for the web. This default view is now monetized - and controlled - by Google in how it links to top level documents on the web.

We're starting to think of Facebook's platform to be like Google. In a way, it is indexing the world of information, not by most linked, but by most liked. Like Google, when this filter is applied to the good old fashioned web, it shows that the world's content is valuable, and it can be monetized."

The following article tells how a particular design came about and shows how society can dictate design and influences development of Web sites and e-mail marketing for clients in social media.

Merged agency adopts new logo design

Design and the Social Media

The area of DESIGN has a large affect on the Social Media. The way webpages, advertisements, home pages, and even your blog pages are designed can influence sales, visits and so forth. Vandelay Designs has a good piece about How Design Impacts Social Media.