I'm a marginal Linux script writer at best but I appreciate the point regarding composability. Still, I have to wonder whether composability is as relevant today as 30 years ago, not because it isn't a desirable attribute for programmers but because the thousands of developers that are churning out limited feature, limited purpose apps don't seem to miss it. Happy to learn if I'm missing something here.
Wow, can the founding chairman of ICANN be so out of touch with international markets that she doesn't mention the value of internationalized domain names? Perhaps anything you can't read in your native language doesn't have value to some, but this article only considers one aspect of new TLDs.
I emailed the author. He contacted SURBL. They say that bit.ly is now using the SURBL black list but that they don't prevent shortening of black listed URLs; instead, they show the warning that you saw. He's changed his post.
Google certainly changed the way we use the web/Internet. Apple brought more innovation to the the way we interact with computing devices. Both leveraged technology that existed prior to their existence, much as the Romans created from and improved on Greek and Egyptian technologies. We benefit from both, I really don't care to argue which was "best".
I'm not sure that the article really tries to say that a certification is a magical elixir. I think he's saying that they are sold as being magical. I also think he's intentionally calling attention to qualities and criteria that are not easily measured. But that's my read.
Good points. I think setting expectations is critically important. I see a lot of oversell in certification programs (this certification proves you are elite) and too much blind acceptance of the oversell. These are serious problems.
I don't mean to be simple but the best incentives for using a product are (a) it does what it promises to do and well, (b) the cost and benefits are commensurate, (c) it is more elegant or efficient or <name your quality metric> than its competition?
I don't need games or rewards or incentives to buy products that meet these criteria.
In fact majority of people base purchase decisions on unrelated psychological factors such as making them feel good about themselves or validating their "success" or completion/reward mechanics. It is what advertising/marketing industries are ALL about, few massmarket products are sold or bought on their merits.
In some respects, it's overdue. The US is has the most debt in the world. The debt-to-GDP ratio is 100%. Spending exceeds income. Would you loan the US money?
Until the Dems and Reps stop trying to win elections and start governing, things will not improve.
We need to spend less and collect more taxes.
We also need to stop imagining that there's a 2-4 year fix. This is not an economic crisis. Several decades of poor leadership producing fiscally irresponsible legislation put us here. It's going to take 5-10 years to correct. Lots of Americans will have to learn to live with less.
We've long speculated that incidents are under-reported. Social and other media are catalysts for transparency. They may also force organizations to be responsible or accountable. I agree this is a good thing. We may not be able to find a good way to capture real numbers, but I suspect that we have a more accurate picture than we did 10 years ago.
RE: benefits to livelihood. My security consulting didn't suffer while organizations chose not to disclose. The only difference between then and now was a clause in the contract regarding disclosure :-O
