Computers what?

Forecasting and predicting in IT/Cyber can be difficult, but there is an aspect of this world that people consistently predict for with the goals being met. For those of you that care not to track silicon chip development and projections, Moore’s Law may be unfamiliar to you. Hoping in our time machine back to April 19th, 1965, in a section aptly called “The experts look ahead, Dr. Gordon Moore made a prediction that every two years the number of semiconductors that a measurable space can contain would double(Moore, 1965). It has been 56 years, and the law holds to this day. I personally made a prediction when pursuing my BS that Moore’s law would die due to eventually reaching a stage where the width of a wavelength of light used to cut the wafer would be larger than the cut needed. To me, what is most impressive is that not only did his prediction prove true in the short term, but has held up an insane amount of time when considering we are talking about IT development. IT changes f...

The famed Walt Disney once said, “Here you leave today and enter the world of yesterday, tomorrow, and fantasy.” While he was not speaking about Cyber and IT, I believe he was speaking about one of his parks, it still holds when looking at how IT and Cyber may move forward. You look back at what has happened and the projection, see what you know tomorrow has in store, and fantasies about what the future is going to bring. We don’t call it fantasizing though, we call it projecting. In our fantasizing of the future, we have options such as scenario planning and traditional forecasting. Let’s compare and contrast these concepts. Also, it is no longer weather forecasting, it’s weather fantasizing, spread the word. First, in the words of my son, “What’s that?” So what is Scenario Planning? If you are (un)lucky enough to have had the opportunity to read Scenario Planning: A Field Guide to the Future by Woody Wade (Wade, 2012), the author would tell you on page 10 not to forecast the future...

Throughout history there have occurred accidents that have brought wonderful ideas and technology into the world. These happy little accidents can seem insignificant, but have wonderful ramifications. A common snack that can be located in nearly every American kitchen, the potato chip, was an accident out of spite, and one of the more famous events is the accidental discovery of penicillin. Potato Chip As many things go down, the story of the potato chip may be more legend than fact. It states that in Saratoga Springs in the year 1853, there was a rather annoying customer in a restaurant (Breyer, 2017). This customer repeatedly returned the food that George “Speck” Crum had prepared back to the kitchen stating that patron was dissatisfied with the food. Upon the return of the food a third time and wishing to import his frustration onto the customer, Mr. Crum decided to maliciously slice the potato into small slivers, severely fried the Irish staple, and heavily salt the dish. This de...

Hello all you cool cats and kittens! Hard to believe that Tiger King will be one year old come Saturday (March 20th). But that’s not the subject of this post. It’s “think tank methods.” In the Air Force, there is always a drive to innovate. Leadership has offered cash prizes, sometimes even five digits. It was based on the amount of money that the idea would save. Currently, there is a competition, started out called “Shark Tank” at the 694 ISS, Osan AB, and caught on. For legal reasons, the name was changed (Spark Tank), and it is now an Air Force wide program. There are some will know think tanks in the US. The ones I hear the most about seem to always be the political ones with The Heritage Foundation and Council on Foreign Relations immediately coming to mind. In a 2014 report, the author speaks to globalization, growth of international; actors, and democratization as current trends with these types of think tanks (McGann, 2015). But how do these think tanks work, and how can my ...

First, you should all know that I generally hate group decision-making. Ask for permission from the boss to do something, and the next thing you know, (s)he wants to go higher and form a meeting with people to discuss the matter, and everyone hedges their wordings to not look bad in the end, and it takes weeks to come to a simple decision. Red-tape makes me want to die. Thankfully, you can flex some authoritative control in the military and make decisions until your boss reins you in. As you may have guessed, this post revolves around group decision-making, specifically, group decision-making methods and techniques. The research direction started with the Delphi Technique/Method. Does it have to do with an oracle? Sadly, no. The first thing I found out is that Delphi utilizes a panel of experts, not a good start for me. I find that "experts" really like to talk to show off their expertise. I then read a word that made me happy, "qualitative." It seems this method ...

This week we are taking a look at a Horizon Report. I pulled up the 2021 Horizon report that was posted in February (Publications, 2021). It gave me a good chuckle when it stated that an “Uber Trend” was remote work. No, you don’t say! Page 8 went into far more detail, but like we could all have guessed, COVID-19 was mentioned in the first sentence. as the major contributing factor in the panel’s discussions. Remote work was considered so important that the title Uber was granted to this trend. I cannot disagree at all. Through my experience, companies used to say how infeasible remote work was, probably due to the age of the decision-makers, until the organizations were forced to take a look at it and leverage remote work this past year. On the Executive Summary page, it mentioned, under trends in Technology, “Borderless Networks / Network without Boundary” and that immediately got my attention. What could that be? Page 10 gave me the information that I was looking for. Turns out t...

CS875 Futuring and Innovation, Individual Project 1 Like any good computer class or Blog, in this case, starts: Hello World! Welcome to my Blog on random computer topics and ideas that I feel like sharing. "Computers what?" is about my thoughts and ideas on IT-related topics, primarily around cybersecurity. However, readers can expect posts on hardware technology, products, and discussions, and my ideas about other people's websites. The name is meant to encompass the concept of learning, that this Blog will be about the development of technology and discovery. That is what working in the cyber field is all about. Continually learning and developing your skillset because IT changes, and it changes fast. To stand still is to fall behind; to study lets you just keep up. While the Blog's name may not immediately show professionalism, we are computer geeks and come from a long line of introvert jokers that have made our professional culture one of levity. The United State...