Quadratic Equations: A New Method
December 15, 2019
If you deal with quadratic equations, you will want to read “A New Way to Make Quadratic Equations Easy.” The procedure is straightforward, and apparently has been either overlooked, lost in time, or dismissed as out of step with current teaching methods. Worth a look but my high school mathematics teacher Ms. Blackburn would not approve. She liked old school methods, including whacking teen aged boys on the head with her wooden ruler.
Stephen E Arnold, December 15. 2019
This Snooping Stuff
December 14, 2019
The Economist’s story “Offering Software for Snooping to Governments Is a Booming Business” sounds good. The article is locked behind a paywall so you will have to sign up to read the quite British analysis. There are some interesting comments zipping around about the article. For example, a useful thread appears at this link.
Several observations struck me as informative; for example:
- The Economist does not mention Cisco. This is important because Cisco has an “intelligence” capability with some useful connections to innovators in other countries.
- Palantir, a recipient of another US government contract, is not mentioned in the write up. For information about this new Palantir project, navigate to “Palantir Wins New Pentagon Deal With $111 Million From the Army.” This is paywalled as well.
- There is even a reference to surveillance technology delivering a benefit.
Perhaps those interested in surveillance software will find the interview Robert Steele, a former CIA professional, conducted with me. You can find that information at this link.
Perhaps the Economist will revisit this topic and move beyond NSO Group and colloquial language like snooping?
Stephen E Arnold
Vertical Search Engine Milled for Marketing Emails
December 13, 2019
We are curious whether this vertical search engine will take the wind out of Google’s sails (or sales). Milled is a “search engine for email newsletters: Browse and search sales, deals, coupons, and discount codes from thousands of retailers and brands,” the home page declares in a banner that pops up on one’s first visit. That banner also presents a button for companies that wonder, “How do I get my brand on Milled?” The “For-Brands” page answers that question and more:
“Get new customers from your emails: Milled is a search engine for your email newsletters — unlocking them from inboxes and making them discoverable by new customers. Milled has 5,550,718 emails from 110,356 brands. Convert emails into an acquisition channel: Your emails are great for retaining existing customers, but now they can help you find new customers, as well. Milled helps customers who aren’t already on your mailing list find you. Add years of shelf life to your emails: Your team works hard to build emails that only live for 1-2 days. On Milled, they’ll last forever: attracting customers, generating leads, and driving traffic. Get started in 1 minute: 1. Register for an account on Milled, and be sure to confirm your email address 2. Connect your site to Milled by following the instructions 3. Add the unique email addresses that Milled generates to your mailing lists. Whenever you send an email, we’ll post it automatically.”
The front page reproduces emails companies have sent out the day one visits, generally announcing sales and special offers. One can select “All,” “Popular,” or browse by category. One can also choose companies to follow on the Brands page.
This is a smart idea for a specialized search engine, one that might just give Google a run for its ad money.
Cynthia Murrell, December 13, 2019
IBM Watson Dons An Indiana Jones Hat
December 13, 2019
Our knowledge on ancient civilizations is based on archeological evidence. Historians and scientists can only infer how ancient people lived, but often times the civilizations are shrouded more in mystery than answers. National Geographic España shares one mystery from Peru, “Descubiertos nuevos geoglifos en Nazca gracias a la Inteligencia Artificial.” If you do not speak Spanish, the article title translates as “New Geoglyphs Discovered in Nazca Thanks To Artificial Intelligence.”
One of Peru’s greatest treasures are the gigantic geoglyphs on the Nazca pampas. The geoglyphs are huge images of animals and humans drawn by the Nazcan people between 1 BC and eighth century AD. The geoglyphs are huge creations made from white sand set against large expanses of black rock. They were first discovered in 1927, then became UNESCO World Heritage sites in 1994.
There are many theories about why the Nazcan people drew the geoglyphs on the pampas encompassing an area of 75,000 hectares. Three hundred geoglyphs have been recorded, but Masato Sakai of Yamagata University, who specializes Andean culture and archaeology, used artificial intelligence to discover one hundred forty-three new geoglyphs. All of the new geoglyphs range between five to one hundred meters in size and are estimated to made between 100 BC and 300 AD. They are shared like animals and humans, similar to past discovered geoglyphs. Artificial intelligence built on an IBM Watson computer to find the geoglyphs:
“The new geoglyphs have been identified thanks to field work combined with artificial intelligence and high-resolution 3D data analysis, an investigation carried out between 2018 and 2019. In addition, the Japanese team discovered one of them when developing an artificial intelligence (AI) model on the IBM Power System AC922 artificial intelligence server, configured with the IBM Watson Machine Learning Community Edition deep learning platform. The study explored the feasibility of AI to discover new lines by introducing into the system the ability to process large volumes of data including high-resolution aerial photos at high speeds.”
Without AI these Nazcan geoglyphs might never have been discovered. New, more robust technology allows archeologists like Sakai to find, research, and preserve these wonders and learn more about an ancient society. The question still remains why the Nazcan people created such huge drawings only visible from the air. Watson will never be able to solve that mystery.
Whitney Grace, December 13, 2019
Googley Philanthropy
December 13, 2019
We are treated to more Google executive PR speak in the ABC News story, “Google’s Do-Good Arm Tries to Make Up for Everything Else.” AP Reporter Angela Charlton cites a Paris interview with Google VP Jacqueline Fuller, where she announced some grant awards. The winning projects aspire to teach digital literacy to the poor, the elderly, immigrants, and rural users. Other emphases of Fuller’s division include working to keep children safe online and using AI to increase access to health care, build better emergency services, and boost access to job opportunities. Charlton writes:
“The philanthropic arm she runs, Google.org, is like the company’s conscience, spending $100 million a year on non-profit groups that use technology to try to counteract problems the tech world is accused of creating, abetting or exacerbating. ‘Across the world we want to make sure we’re a responsible citizen,’ she said. But can Google’s do-good arm make up for everything else? At least it’s trying, she argues.”
So, they want an A for effort? That would take more than a measly $100 million per year. Fuller insists the company is having vigorous internal “conversations” around the topics of their controversies, for whatever that is worth. Issues like privacy and the misuse of user data, algorithmic bias, the perpetuation of hate speech, employee sexual misconduct allegations, weapons development (Project Maven, in cooperation with the Pentagon), and potential human rights violations are not so easily counteracted. There may be hope for change, however, due to external pressure. The article reminds us:
“Public outrage has grown over Google’s use of consumer data and domination of the online search market, with governments stepping up scrutiny of the company. … Former Google design ethicist Tristan Harris argues technology is shortening our attention spans and pushing people toward more extreme views. He couldn’t get Google to tackle these problems when he was there, so he quit and is pushing for change through his Center for Human Technologies. He says companies like Google won’t change voluntarily but that the tech world has undergone a ‘sea change’ in awareness of problems it’s caused, thanks in part to pressure from a frustrated public.”
We shall see where that awareness leads.
Cynthia Murrell, December 13, 2019
Azure Is Better at Hybrid Computing Because AWS Is an Orchid
December 12, 2019
There’s an interesting explanation of the DoD’s JEDI award in “Opinion: Microsoft Fairly and Squarely Beat Amazon in $10 Billion Pentagon Cloud Contract.” The reason is:
In 2017, Microsoft designed Azure Stack to meet hybrid cloud computing needs, a distinction from AWS, which was designed for cloud-only computing needs without the flexibility of leveraging on-premise servers. That has led Amazon to chase Microsoft with hybrid-cloud offerings such as AWS Outposts, which launched in November of 2018 — well after the Pentagon bid had been opened. As of the first half of 2019, Microsoft was the only company among the top three cloud providers that has a generally available hybrid cloud. Microsoft’s Windows operating system has run on servers for decades, and it was a natural extension to offer Azure Cloud to run on-premise. Microsoft’s hybrid strategy has resulted in 95% of Fortune 500 companies using Azure today. That is a staggering statistic, which shows the superiority of hybrid cloud compared with traditional cloud computing. As J.B. Hunt, one of Azure’s Fortune 500 customers, said: “Microsoft didn’t ask us to bend to their vision of a cloud.”
Amazon is unlikely to agree. Amazon’s lawyers definitely will view this explanation as insufficiently developed to justify dropping the lawsuit.
The problem is that “one throat to choke” seems like a great idea. But the reality is that there usually are many throats to choke regardless of who is the contract winner.
The idea of a common platform or framework, data harmonization, and smooth access control are easy to talk about.
Reality is a little more chaotic. Read the original write up and decide. Then consider how likely it is that a single individual or a small business has a single throat to choke when something goes wrong. Throat choking is preceded by finger pointing, and none of the technology giants deliver reliability, ease of use, and fantasy land solutions.
Reality. Messy. Azure is a hybrid. AWS is an orchid. Neither is guaranteed a long, healthy existence if the gardener forgets to water the plants, the insects decide to chow down, or a road grader grind ouy a new information highway.
Lawyers? Guaranteed money. Other parties? Not guaranteed much.
Probably not.
Stephen E Arnold, December 12, 2019
Lexalytics: The RPA Market
December 12, 2019
RPA is an acronym which was new to the DarkCyber team. A bit of investigation pointed us to “Adding New NLP Capabilities for RPA: Build or Buy” plus other stories published by Lexalytics. This firm provides a sentiment analysis system. The idea is that smart software can figure out what the emotion of content objects is. Some sentiment analysis systems just use word lists. An email arrives with the word, “sue,” the smart software flags the email and, in theory, a human looks at the message. Other systems use a range of numerical recipes to figure out if a message contains an emotional payload.
Now RPA.
The idea is that robotic process automation is becoming more important. The vendors of RPA have to be aware that natural language processing related to text analytics is also increasing in importance. You can read about RPA on the Lexalytics blog at this link.
The jargon caught our attention. After a bit of discussion over lunch on December 5, 2019, we decided that RPA is a new term for workflows that are scripted and hopefully intelligent.
Now you know. RPA, workflow, not IPA.
Stephen E Arnold, December 12, 2019
Spain Wants to Tax Google
December 12, 2019
International agreements about taxing corporations are complex. Spain, like France, is not kicking back and letting the status quo prevail. El Pais (paywalled, gentle reader) reported that Spain is planning on going ahead with Google tax despite US tariff threats. You can access the story and the paywall block at this link.
The newspaper stated:
After US President Donald Trump threatened to impose tariffs of up to 100% on French products, on Monday the EU closed ranks, announcing that it would respond “united” to a measure of this kind.
How much would companies subject to the tax have to pay? Think in terms of three percent.
When will the tax become more than terrace talk? As soon as Spain formulates its new government. Or mañana.
Stephen E Arnold, December 12, 2019
Supersearcher: Secrets Revealed
December 12, 2019
Most of the people I encounter today are quick to tell me, “I am an excellent researcher.” Confidence can be useful. When I read articles like “Become a Google Super Searcher with These 17 Tips,” I marvel at how the concept of a super searcher has degraded. I have met some super searchers; for example, Barbara Quint, Marydee Ojala, Reva Basch, and others. You may ask, “Who are these people?” Sorry. I won’t help you. Use the tips in the article to locate information about these real super searchers.
What are the secrets revealed in the Spec? Let me highlight five of these insights for you. You may find them helpful. I reserve comment. Here we go, but you will have to use your search skills to locate the other secrets if the link and the paywall block you, gentle reader:
- Know the difference between a link to a source and an ad.
- Be suspicious.
- Use other search engines in addition to Google.
- Wikipedia may not be a verified source.
- Arrange your search terms.
Remember. There are 12 more tips. And you can use the Twitter CEO’s favorite search engine which recycles results from other search systems.
Stephen E Arnold, December 12, 2019
Is This the Future of Open Source?
December 11, 2019
Open source software essentially breaks the chains which vendors of proprietary software clamp on their customers. A good idea? Sure, as long as their are multiple people supporting the code and following the rules (such as they are). “OSXfuse Is No Longer Open Source” makes clear that open source software can go away. Bad move? Unfair? Inconsiderate? The write up explains:
So to summarize again
* Apple does Apple things and heavily restricts third-party developers.
* Fleischer, having dealt with malarkey like this for close to a decade, realizes he doesn’t get paid enough for this [expletive deleted].
* He makes the repo closed source in 2017, but doesn’t mention this to anyone.
* In 2019, after making a bunch of critical changes to the code, he quietly announces that the licensing terms of the project are now different.
* At this stage in the proceedings, companies’ choices are to pay up or tell their users that they can’t use the hot new version of macOS.
As far as monetization strategies go, love it or hate it, you’ve got to give the guy props.
However, there are other corrosive forces at work. Examples include the appropriation of open source code by large, well funded entities. The open source software is wrapped in proprietary functions. Open source morphs into — wait for it — proprietary software.
What’s the impact? The old Hegelian thesis, antithesis, synthesis process is alive and well. Good to know.
Stephen E Arnold, December 11, 2019
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