Mainframe Madness in US Government
February 28, 2010
Fascinating article “US Secret Service Shackled by Ancient Mainframes.” The search engine optimization company known as IBM has been crowing about the value of mainframes. In fact, a recent sale was to a bank in Africa. Yep, that’s a niche.
Despite IBM’s efforts to convince me that I need a mainframe in my office, I have had enough experience with these beasties to say, “No thanks.” IBM is deep into search engine optimization, and I know that SEO wizards understand computers.
The most interesting point in the write up was the use of the phrase “shackled by ancient mainframes.” Mainframes are not ancient; they are – er, ahem – geriatric.
The second interesting comment in the write up was in my opinion:
… a Secret Service memo (dated Oct. 16, 2009) obtained by ABC News revealed that 42 mission-oriented applications ran on a 1980s IBM mainframe with a 68 percent performance reliability rating. In addition, networks, data systems, applications, and IT security did “not meet” current operational requirements, while the IT systems lacked appropriate bandwidth to run multiple applications to “effectively support” USSS offices and operational missions around the world.
IBM Federal Systems has a big operation in between Germantown and Rockville. Why can’t the IBM folks get these Secret Service systems working? I think I know. The real wizards at IBM are in SEO or selling consulting services.
As a result, the mainframe units may be starved for talent.
Stephen E Arnold, February 27, 2010
No one paid me to write this. With IBM revamping the GSA systems, I will report my writing for free to someone at IBM Federal Systems. I wonder if an SEO expert is on duty now.
German Google Books Activity
February 26, 2010
A reader sent me an email filled with useful information. A happy quack to that person. Here’s the key information from that message.
I know you like watching these efforts.
Munich Digitization Center of the Bavarian State Library does the scanning. The product: The German Digital Library (Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek, or DDB). The Fraunhofer Institute in Sankt Augustin, near Bonn, is responsible for the DDB’s computer technology and may be based on Theseus. The goal is to integrate the DDB with Europeana. See information here.
Another article on the Fraunhofer Institute linked from Silobreaker looks at developments in 3-D scanning of museum pieces and the possible building of an online repository of culture and archaeology. See the China Post’s “Digital Depot May Archive World Culture in 3-D.”
Great idea for Germany, but with the European Union’s financial challenges falling on Germany’s broad shoulders, I am not certain the flow of money needed to deliver a Google-scale project will be available if Greece, Italy, Spain, and Belgium go south.
Stephen E Arnold, February 26, 2010
No one paid me to copy and paste a reader’s email. Because I used the word “mail”, I will report sending a message without official payment to the US Postal Service.
iTunes Landmark
February 26, 2010
This just in: iTunes sold it’s 10 BILLIONth song on Feb. 25, 2010!
Can you imagine that… open for business April 28, 2004, iTunes has already sold its first 10,000,000,000! And all of them were bought online with never a 33 rpm, 45 rpm, long play, VCR, cassette, CD or DVD being shipped… just a click of the mouse!
The world’s largest music, TV and movie retailer doesn’t have a store front, is open 24/365 and has a 12 million song inventory (plus 55,000 TV episodes and 8,500 movies) without the need for a warehouse to store them in. Who would have ever thought… ? Well, that’s today. How long do you think it will take for the next 10 billion to happen?
For your information, the 10 billionth song purchased was “Guess Things Happen That Way” by Johnny Cash. The lucky buyer, ironically, is from Woodstock (Georgia, in this case), representing even today, the soul that drives many of the purchases. For his lucky timing, iTunes has given him a $10,000 gift card. Wow! Is he going to have a great song library.
Jerry Constantino, February 26, 2010
This post was paid for by ArnoldIT.com
UK Government Web Archive Progress
February 26, 2010
Short honk: I found “UK Web Archive Will Offer Just 1% of Web Sites by 2011” interesting for two reasons. First, the notion of taking a year to build a Web archive struck me as somewhat slow progress. My recollection is that at that rate, it may be difficult to build a sufficient repository to make its usefulness to me evident. New pages and changes are important in my work. Second, I found this comment interesting:
Its UK Web Archive, which was officially launched today, contains just 6,000 of around 8 million UK websites. According to the British Library, on average UK websites have a lifespan of between 44 and 75 days. It also said that at least 10 percent of all UK websites were either lost or replaced by new material every six months. However, under the 2003 Legal Deposit Library Act the group needs to gain permission from the website owner before it can archive the site, which is slowing down the process dramatically.
When I read this, I can understand the frustration that some commercial companies must feel when government agencies decide to create certain collections of information. On the other hand, I see only opportunity. With the UK approach, the job seems to be behind the eight ball before it begins.
Why not chat with Internet Archive and just NOT (filter) out the non-UK content. Not perfect but somewhat more robust than 6,000 sites if I understand the write up.
Stephen E Arnold, February 26, 2010
No one paid me to point out that there is a disconnect between government time and Internet time. I think I have to report geophysical issues to the timekeepers in the US, NIST.
Internet Metrics
February 24, 2010
One of my goslings submitted a write up about Internet Metrics. Here’s his item to me:
*The data came from Defensetech.org, a military.com site about “how technology is shaping how wars are fought, borders are protected, crooks are caught and individual rights are defined.”
In 2009, there were 90 trillion e-mails sent over the Internet with an estimated 81 percent being spam. There were over one trillion unique URLs in Google’s index. YouTube served over one billion videos per day, on average. There were over 47 million new Web sites added.
By the end of 2010, there will be over 1.9 billion Internet users worldwide. The volume of daily email will be greater than 100 billion messages per day. There will be over 3.3 billion cell phones users with Internet access. We sites will jump to more than 265 million. The number of blogs will hit 130 million.
Ignore that, if you can.
The challenges of the internet, its social networking implications and our fast-evolving digital world are more than shared by today’s marketers. They are also a first line of defense concern, as you can imagine. And like a run-away train, it will not be stopped.
That, my friends, is the world we live in. A little scary, isn’t it? But (and I have been waiting so very many years to use this poem that I was forced to memorize as a high school freshman), “If we buckle right in, with a bit of a grin… without any doubting or ‘quit-it. If we tackle this thing that can not be done… we’ll soon be able to say, ‘We did it!’“
So if you need impetus to ‘buckle right in,’ consider yourself pushed.
Jerry Constantino, February 24, 2010
ArnoldIT.com paid Mr. Constantino for his write up.
Google and Screwups
February 24, 2010
PCWorld is certainly getting frisky. The story “2010 Is Becoming the Year of Google Screwups.” The article written by Robert X. Cringely is going to get lots of clicks. Even the addled goose exercises goose judgment when writing about Googzilla. For example, I wanted to cover the Google mistress article, but I had a tough time figuring out how to hook search into the story.
Not PCWorld. For me, the most interesting point was:
So far, 2010 is shaping up to be the year Google discovered it had feet of clay — and those feet have been spending a lot of time in Google’s mouth.
The Screwups article provides a particularly useful discussion of Google and its handling of copyright violation claims. MBAs are going to love this write up.
In my view, the year is young.
Stephen E Arnold, February 24, 2010
No one paid me to write this. Because of the reference to copyright, I will alert the Copyright Office that I am working like a beaver chewing down potentially useful raw material for paper suitable for ink jet use.
Digital Dorks: Maybe Lots of Them?
February 24, 2010
I was amused with the Wall Street Journal’s “free” article called “Nearly 20% of US Is Digitally Uncomfortable or Digitally Distant, FCC Says.” Some folks, according to the Federal Communications Commission, are not hip to online. If not hip to online, I wonder if these segments read books, subscribe to magazines, and frequent the local library to lap up information.
In the Commonwealth of Kentucky, the schools struggle to crank out students who can read. The low level of reading skill may be different where you live, but I find it disturbing. Also Harrod’s Creek is enlivened on some mornings with the sound of gun fire. Avid hunters pursue squirrel (tree rats in the local jargon), deer (rats on hooves), and geese (not sure if I am a rat or not) with enthusiasm. My network access is flakey and the throughput sucks. I have to high speed lines, so unless it snows or rains or is windy or is foggy, the data creeps through.
Why then would it be surprising that in Kentucky and similar states, there would be a large chunk of folks who are digitally different? I think that online for some folks means using an automatic teller machine for cash, not surfing LexisNexis.
Among the factoids in the write up that impressed me were:
- The digitally distant make up 10 percent of the US population. Figure 320 million people. The distant folks amount to 32 million.
- The digitally uncomfortable account for another 10 percent. That’s another 32 million people.
That means that 64 million people are not going to be into online like this addled goose. What happens when we consider the appetite for reading and the unemployment rate”? What about the dependence on video games, Twitter, and TV for information? What about the loss of local bookstores? What about the decline in local radio and TV news coverage? Yikes!
For me, it means that knowledge workers comprise an important but probably very tiny segment of society. So when we talk about search and nifty gadgets like the forthcoming Apple iPad, I wonder if the spectacular growth numbers associated with online and tech-based services are sustainable.
Even more interesting a question is, “Will search systems shift from user generated queries to predictive pushing of information?” The idea is that some people may be too busy or simply unable to formulate a query for the information needed to perform a task. Why search? Just take what gets pushed to a person with a question.
Finally, with the information revolution going on for decades, what happens to the organizations who have not yet mastered electronic information? Into what category do these people and their organizations fit? Maybe we need a new segment for digital dorks? Just a question, not a real assertion.
Stephen E Arnold, February 24, 2010
No one paid me to think up the phrase digital dorks. I will report non payment to the Council on Literacy.
Baffled about Real Journalists
February 23, 2010
I am not a journalist. I don’t even know how one becomes a “real” journalist. I learned when I read “Why We Don’t Trust Devil Mountain Software (and Neither Should You)” that big publishing companies don’t know either, assuming the information in the write up is accurate. I guess I should not be surprised. I learned last week at a person who writes about electronic information is officially an “expert” on electronic information. I suppose that means that if I were a crime reporter and I wrote about an alleged illegal activity, I would be qualified to talk about wrongdoing as an “expert”. I wonder how the professionals in law enforcement, military intelligence, and related disciplines feel about “real” journalists becoming experts by virtue of talking to people and reading news items? I suppose faux expertise and “real” journalists are products of the modern world. I find the footprints of these types of folks when I work to mop up after search and content processing disasters. There is a downside to the lack of information about complex subjects even at outfits who are supposed to “know” what’s “real” and what’s not. One thing is sure. This flap is great for the search engine optimization crowd.
Stephen E Arnold, February 23, 2010
No one paid me to write this. I do use a persona—namely, the addled goose—when I write this column. But I received no crumbs for this article. As a fowl, I will report this bedraggled condition to Fish & Wildlife. I wonder if the “real” journalist was paid for his dual roles?
Google and Energy
February 22, 2010
I left the power generation industry in 1975 (I think). I did a study of the online transaction service rolled out for Enron’s energy trading. That project forced me to look at how other companies dabbled in this once little-known niche in the US energy sector. Anyone remember Aquilla, a name derived from the Latin word for eagle. Aquilla is still around, but it does business as Black Hills Energy. The other companies in this sector now have some competition.
The basics of energy trading is a variant of online search and retrieval. Information is indexed and then either analysts or smart software work through the data and their changes. The algorithms stipulate that when A happens, B should occur if the probability is X.
In short, energy trading is just another application running on a computer. The reason I mention this is that Google is now in the buying and selling of energy business. You can get the basics in “Google Energy Can Now Buy and Sell Electricity.”
Most of the commentary I have scanned suggests that Google will be able to save money on its own electricity bills. That’s partially correct. My view is that the Google platform is going to take the “old” Enron model and improve it. Just as search and retrieval in the late 1990s was stuck in a rut, energy trading is similarly encumbered with inefficiencies.
My view: Google could be a bigger and better Enron. I do hope that its managers exercise somewhat better judgment than the “old” Enron group did. Worth watching because prior to this announcement I think the power generation, energy traders, and Wall Street mavens did not perceive Google as a mover or shaker in financial markets.
Well, that group of pundits will regroup once the light bulb goes on. Will the power be intermediated through Google’s trading desk? Buying and selling stuff based on digital data is just another Google application. Simple statement. Big implications in my opinion. Those janitor methods at Google are going to be busy little beavers.
Stephen E Arnold, February 21, 2010
I wish to report to the DOE that I was not paid to write this article. I was thinking of making the disclosure to the SEC, but I think that group has its hands full with traditional publicly traded power generation companies.
PointCast Version 2?
February 19, 2010
I read “Did Google Reader Just Turn on the Firehose?” I don’t use the Google Reader. The addled goose does not read. But when he scanned with one eye the story in Stay N’ Alive, he had one thought, “Is PointCast back?” Different coat of paint maybe but possibly the same squeaking wheel?
Stephen E Arnold, February 19, 2010
No one paid me to write this. Non payment means that I must report this to the IMF, an outfit aware of such sad situations.
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