Muscles

 

Self Determination

Fifty independent countries existed in 1920. Today, there are nearly two hundred. One of the motivating forces behind this wave of country-creation was self-determination—the concept that nations (groups of people united by ethnicity, language, geography, history, or other common characteristics) should be able to determine their political future.

In the early twentieth century, a handful of European empires ruled the majority of the world. However, colonized nations across Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and elsewhere argued that they deserved the right to determine their political future. Their calls for self-determination became rallying cries for independence.

Ultimately, the breakup of these empires throughout the twentieth century—a process known as decolonization—resulted in an explosion of new countries, creating the world map largely as we recognize it today.

But now that the age of empires is over, is that map set in stone? Not quite. Self-determination continues to play a role in deciding borders, but the landscape is more complicated.

Many people around the world argue that their governments—many of which emerged during decolonization—do not in reality represent the entire country’s population. The borders of colonies seldom had anything to do with any national (or economic or internal political) criteria. So when decolonization occurred, many of the newly created countries were artificial and thus rife with internal division.

However, for a group inside a country to achieve self-determination today, that country’s sovereignity... the principle that guarantees countries get to control what happens within their borders and prohibits them from meddling in another country’s domestic affairs—will be violated. In other words, creating a country through self-determination inherently means taking territory and people away from a country that already exists.

Whereas many world leaders openly called for the breakup of empires, few are willing to endorse the breakup of modern countries. Indeed, the United Nations’ founding charter explicitly discourages it. And the fact that so many modern countries face internal divisions means few governments are eager to embrace the creation of new countries abroad, fearing that doing so could set a precedent that leads to the unraveling of their own borders.

A road to self-determination still remains, but it is far trickier in a world in which empires no longer control colonies oceans away.

Hungry Cats

 

DevOps

DevOps is the combination of cultural philosophies, practices, and tools that increases an organization’s ability to deliver applications and services at high velocity: evolving and improving products at a faster pace than organizations using traditional software development and infrastructure management processes. This speed enables organizations to better serve their customers and compete more effectively in the market.

Under a DevOps model, development and operations teams are no longer “siloed.” Sometimes, these two teams are merged into a single team where the engineers work across the entire application lifecycle, from development and test to deployment to operations, and develop a range of skills not limited to a single function.

In some DevOps models, quality assurance and security teams may also become more tightly integrated with development and operations and throughout the application lifecycle. When security is the focus of everyone on a DevOps team, this is sometimes referred to as DevSecOps.

These teams use practices to automate processes that historically have been manual and slow. They use a technology stack and tooling which help them operate and evolve applications quickly and reliably. These tools also help engineers independently accomplish tasks (for example, deploying code or provisioning infrastructure) that normally would have required help from other teams, and this further increases a team’s velocity.

Why DevOps Matters
Software and the Internet have transformed the world and its industries, from shopping to entertainment to banking. Software no longer merely supports a business; rather it becomes an integral component of every part of a business. Companies interact with their customers through software delivered as online services or applications and on all sorts of devices. They also use software to increase operational efficiencies by transforming every part of the value chain, such as logistics, communications, and operations. In a similar way that physical goods companies transformed how they design, build, and deliver products using industrial automation throughout the 20th century, companies in today’s world must transform how they build and deliver software.  READ MORE...

Free Ride

 

Sovereignity

Sovereignty is the bedrock of international relations. The concept lays out basic rules for how countries are allowed to interact with one another. In principle, it means countries get to control what happens inside their borders and can’t interfere in what happens elsewhere. This protects countries from being invaded over internal matters.

But the concept of sovereignty doesn’t play out perfectly in reality. There are limits to the control a country can exercise over what happens inside its borders. In the case of grievous human rights abuses like genocide, many countries argue breaches of sovereignty should be allowed on humanitarian grounds. Meanwhile, dozens of countries around the globe choose to give up a degree of sovereignty to join organizations like the European Union and the World Trade Organization.

Today, as the world grows increasingly interconnected, what constitutes a violation of sovereignty is up for interpretation—and world leaders have to decide how to tackle problems like climate change and terrorism that know no borders.

Nationalism can unite people—but also divide them, to destructive ends.  Countries that respect one another’s independence are the building blocks of our modern international system and learn what it takes for groups of people to form a new country.

Questions:

• Why countries as different as Poland and Germany would give up some sovereignty to join the European Union?
• Is a country’s sovereignty justifiable to protect human rights, such as the NATO-led intervention in Libya in 2011?
• Why some countries breach each other’s sovereignty for non-humanitarian reasons leaving other countries and governments deciding how to respond to such actions?

Online, we see sovereignity this way:  Sovereignty is the supreme authority within a territory.  Sovereignty entails hierarchy within the state, as well as external autonomy for states.  In any state, sovereignty is assigned to the person, body, or institution that has the ultimate authority over other people in order to establish a law or change an existing law.  In political theory, sovereignty is a substantive term designating supreme legitimate authority over some polity.  In international law, sovereignty is the exercise of power by a state. De jure sovereignty refers to the legal right to do so; de facto sovereignty refers to the factual ability to do so. This can become an issue of special concern upon the failure of the usual expectation that de jure and de facto sovereignty exist at the place and time of concern, and reside within the same organization.

A Few Funnies

 

Ballet

 

Internet of Things

The Internet of Things (IoT) describes the network of physical objects—“things”—that are embedded with sensors, software, and other technologies for the purpose of connecting and exchanging data with other devices and systems over the internet. These devices range from ordinary household objects to sophisticated industrial tools. With more than 7 billion connected IoT devices today, experts are expecting this number to grow to 10 billion by 2020 and 22 billion by 2025. Oracle has a network of device partners.

Over the past few years, IoT has become one of the most important technologies of the 21st century. Now that we can connect everyday objects—kitchen appliances, cars, thermostats, baby monitors—to the internet via embedded devices, seamless communication is possible between people, processes, and things.

By means of low-cost computing, the cloud, big data, analytics, and mobile technologies, physical things can share and collect data with minimal human intervention. In this hyperconnected world, digital systems can record, monitor, and adjust each interaction between connected things. The physical world meets the digital world—and they cooperate.

While the idea of IoT has been in existence for a long time, a collection of recent advances in a number of different technologies has made it practical.

• Access to low-cost, low-power sensor technology. Affordable and reliable sensors are making IoT technology possible for more manufacturers.
• Connectivity. A host of network protocols for the internet has made it easy to connect sensors to the cloud and to other “things” for efficient data transfer.
• Cloud computing platforms. The increase in the availability of cloud platforms enables both businesses and consumers to access the infrastructure they need to scale up without actually having to manage it all.
• Machine learning and analytics. With advances in machine learning and analytics, along with access to varied and vast amounts of data stored in the cloud, businesses can gather insights faster and more easily. The emergence of these allied technologies continues to push the boundaries of IoT and the data produced by IoT also feeds these technologies.
• Conversational artificial intelligence (AI). Advances in neural networks have brought natural-language processing (NLP) to IoT devices (such as digital personal assistants Alexa, Cortana, and Siri) and made them appealing, affordable, and viable for home use.

TO READ MORE ABOUT IoT,  CLICK HERE...

Mountain Range

 

Predictive Analytics

Predictive analytics is the use of data, statistical algorithms and machine learning techniques to identify the likelihood of future outcomes based on historical data. The goal is to go beyond knowing what has happened to providing a best assessment of what will happen in the future.

Though predictive analytics has been around for decades, it's a technology whose time has come. More and more organizations are turning to predictive analytics to increase their bottom line and competitive advantage. 

Why now?

• Growing volumes and types of data, and more interest in using data to produce valuable insights.
• Faster, cheaper computers.
• Easier-to-use software.
• Tougher economic conditions and a need for competitive differentiation.

With interactive and easy-to-use software becoming more prevalent, predictive analytics is no longer just the domain of mathematicians and statisticians. Business analysts and line-of-business experts are using these technologies as well.

Organizations are turning to predictive analytics to help solve difficult problems and uncover new opportunities. Common uses include:

Detecting fraud. Combining multiple analytics methods can improve pattern detection and prevent criminal behavior. As cybersecurity becomes a growing concern, high-performance behavioral analytics examines all actions on a network in real time to spot abnormalities that may indicate fraud, zero-day vulnerabilities and advanced persistent threats.

Optimizing marketing campaigns. Predictive analytics are used to determine customer responses or purchases, as well as promote cross-sell opportunities. Predictive models help businesses attract, retain and grow their most profitable customers.

Improving operations. Many companies use predictive models to forecast inventory and manage resources. Airlines use predictive analytics to set ticket prices. Hotels try to predict the number of guests for any given night to maximize occupancy and increase revenue. Predictive analytics enables organizations to function more efficiently.

Reducing risk. Credit scores are used to assess a buyer’s likelihood of default for purchases and are a well-known example of predictive analytics. A credit score is a number generated by a predictive model that incorporates all data relevant to a person’s creditworthiness. Other risk-related uses include insurance claims and collections.  READ MORE...

Pals

 

Russia Ready to FIRE

Provided by Global News...

A senior Russian military official said on Monday that Russia was ready to open fire on foreign ships and submarines that illegally enter its territorial waters, the Interfax news agency reported.

Any such decision would, however, be taken only at the “highest level,”, Stanislav Gadzhimagomedov, deputy head of the main operational department of the General Staff, was quoted as saying.

The comment came two days after Moscow said a Russian naval vessel had chased away a U.S. submarine in Russian waters in the Pacific. The United States denied it had carried out military operations in Russian territorial waters.

Tensions between the two countries are running high, with Washington warning that Russia could attack Ukraine at any time. Moscow denies any such intention, despite massing more than 100,000 troops near Ukraine’s borders, and has accused Western governments of hysteria.

Flashy

 

Dancing Males

Mainstream Media FAILS the test...

The mainstream media is getting a wake-up call after new allegations in the Durham investigation that President Trump and his campaign were being spied on.

Special Counsel John Durham (above left) released in a filing Saturday that the Hillary Clinton (above right) campaign hired techs to "infiltrate" Trump Tower and White House servers to establish a "narrative" to link Trump to Russia. The new findings contradict various doubtful media coverage from programs like CBS’ "60 Minutes."

In an October 2020 interview, Trump appeared on the newsmagazine to address the ongoing investigation and his claim his campaign was spied on. He was shot down by host Lesley Stahl, who insisted the president was spreading unverified information.

"There’s no real evidence," she said. "This is ’60 Minutes.’ We can’t put on things we can’t verify."

CLINTON CAMPAIGN PAID TO ‘INFILTRATE’ TRUMP TOWER, WHITE HOUSE SERVERS TO LINK TRUMP TO RUSSIA: DURHAM

Meanwhile, former CNN dynamic duo Don Lemon and Chris Cuomo criticized John Durham and the Trump administration back in December 2019 for being adamant about uncovering the truth, yet coming up short.

"Nothing happens and they just move on to the next conspiracy theory," Lemon said to Cuomo during a handover. "It is never going to end and guess what? People who want to believe that BS are going to believe it."

In an October 2021 episode of MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show," host Rachel Maddow suggested the intention behind efforts to probe the investigation was always to re-route the investigation away from Trump himself.   READ MORE...

Galloping Horse

 

North Korea Cyberattacks Working

North Korea’s cyberattacks became famous in 2014, when Pyongyang’s hackers targeted Sony Pictures, seemingly in retaliation for a satirical movie about North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. But the reclusive regime’s greatly improved cybercapabilities are not a joke. They’re a serious threat to the stability of the global economy and critical infrastructure systems.

North Korean hackers have gone on to bigger and more financially profitable targets. Since 2014, North Korean hackers have attacked Bangladesh’s central bank, the U.K. National Health Service, and, more recently, cryptocurrency exchanges. And the odds are that many more major North Korean cyberattacks are to come in the near future.

In internal regime discourse, Pyongyang proudly refers to its cyberoperations as its “all-purpose sword.” According to testimony from a South Korean intelligence chief, Kim reportedly stated: “Cyberwarfare, along with nuclear weapons and missiles, is an ‘all-purpose sword’ that guarantees our military’s capability to strike relentlessly.” Subversive, criminal operations are a style of asymmetric warfare long embraced by the North. 

The country’s founding leader, Kim Il Sung, earned his nationalist credentials by fighting Japanese colonialists in the 1930s. His guerrilla band later became the political elite of the North Korean state. During the Cold War era, Kim regularly deployed guerrillas to subvert and instigate the South Korean government. North Koreas hackers are the 21st-century version of guerrilla fighters, moving in the dark and striking at the most vulnerable points.

Historically, guerrillas often depended on banditry and robbery to survive—and one reason for the recent amping up of cyberattacks is financial worries. While Kim Jong Un’s recent missile tests garner international condemnation and head-shaking in Washington and Seoul, Pyongyang’s cyberoperatives work in the shadows. 

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, North Korean borders have been sealed shut for the past two years. North Korean trade with China has largely stalled, and many foreign diplomats have left the country, making the already reclusive state even more isolated.  READ MORE...

Listen to the Rain

 

Internet of Behaviors

The Internet of Behaviors (IoB) is an area of research and development (R&D) that seeks to understand how, when and why humans use technology to make purchasing decisions. IoB combines three fields of study: behavioral science, edge analytics and the Internet of Things (IoT).

IoB platforms are designed to gather, aggregate and analyze data generated from a wide variety of sources, including household digital devices, wearable computers and human online activities. The data is then analyzed in terms of behavioral psychology to look for patterns that can be used by marketing and sales teams to influence future consumer behavior.

An important goal of the IoB is to help marketers understand and monetize the massive amount of data produced by network nodes in the Internet of Things.

The Internet of Behaviors is expected to play an important role in e-commerce, health care, customer experience management (CXM) and search engine optimization (SEO).

Potential IoB use cases include:

• Reducing insurance premiums for drivers whose vehicles consistently report desired brake and acceleration patterns.
• Analyzing a specific user's grocery purchases in order to personalize menu suggestions.
• Using location services and buying history to customize a shopper's point-of-sale (PoS) promotions in real-time.
• Sending an alert when a fitness activity tracker's data indicates the wearer's blood pressure is too high or too low.

TO READ MORE ABOUT IoB, CLICK HERE...

Flashing Colors

 

All About Ukraine

 

Ukraine ranks...

1st in Europe in proven recoverable reserves of uranium ores;

2nd place in Europe and 10th place in the world in terms of titanium ore reserves;

2nd place in the world in terms of explored reserves of manganese ores (2.3 billion tons, or 12% of the world's reserves);

2nd largest iron ore reserves in the world (30 billion tons);

 2nd place in Europe in terms of mercury ore reserves;

3rd place in Europe (13th place in the world) in shale gas reserves (22 trillion cubic meters)

4th in the world by the total value of natural resources;

7th place in the world in coal reserves (33.9 billion tons)

Ukraine is an agricultural country:

1st in Europe in terms of arable land area;

3rd place in the world by the area of black soil (25% of world's volume);

1st place in the world in exports of sunflower and sunflower oil;

2nd place in the world in barley production and 4th place in barley exports;

3rd largest producer and 4th largest exporter of corn in the world;

4th largest producer of potatoes in the world;

5th largest rye producer in the world;

5th place in the world in bee production (75,000 tons);

8th place in the world in wheat exports;

9th place in the world in the production of chicken eggs;

16th place in the world in cheese exports.

Ukraine can meet the food needs of 600 million people.

Ukraine is an industrialized country:

1st in Europe in ammonia production;

2-е Europe's and 4th largest natural gas pipeline system in the world (142.5 bln cubic meters of gas throughput capacity in the EU);

3rd largest in Europe and 8th largest in the world in terms of installed capacity of nuclear power plants;

3rd place in Europe and 11th in the world in terms of rail network length (21,700 km);

3rd place in the world (after the U.S. and France) in production of locators and locating equipment;

3rd largest iron exporter in the world

4th largest exporter of turbines for nuclear power plants in the world;

4th world's largest manufacturer of rocket launchers

The Most Valuable Companies in the WORLD

 

Nikki Haley on CHINA

 

Lighted Tree

Master Sergeant & Chef Andre RUSH

Andre Rush is an American celebrity chef and military veteran. Rush worked in the White House as a Chef for four administrations. Rush, a retired Master Sergeant of the US Army, gained attention for his large biceps and muscular physique.

Rush grew up in Columbus, Mississippi.  He played football in the position of running back at Lee High School in Columbus.  He holds a bachelor's degree in Business Management from Trident University International, an associate degree in Hotel Restaurant Management from Central Texas College and an associate degree from Culinary Stafford University.

Rush enlisted as active duty in the US Army in 1993. He has been deployed several times, and has served as a trainer in hand-to-hand combat and food service. In 1997, he began to cook at the White House. He has served the presidential administrations of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump.  He worked at the White House part-time while simultaneously working at The Pentagon.  He was in the gym of the Pentagon when it was hit during the September 11, 2001 attacks, and chose to enlist in combat duties afterwards.

In June 2018, Rush received fame when he was photographed by CNN reporter Kate Bennett preparing a Ramadan meal for a White House dinner.  The photo of him cooking on the White House lawn during the annual White House Iftar dinner circulated on Twitter, and subsequently went viral.  Later that year, Rush signed a deal to produce a television show entitled Chef in the City.  He has since left his job as a White House chef.

In 2020, Rush attended the opening of a Salvation Army in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, whereupon they gave him a celebration of service award.

Rush was a member of the U.S. Army Culinary Arts Team. In addition to cooking, Rush's other pursuits include ice carving, motivational speaking and life coaching.

Fitness
Rush is known for his physique and large 24 inch biceps that gave him notoriety on social media.  As a high school senior he reportedly could bench press 350 pounds (160 kg) while weighing just 150 pounds (68 kg).  In 2010, he was reported to be able to bench press 605 pounds (274 kg).   Rush states he does 2,222 pushups daily as part of the 22 pushup challenge, with the goal to raise awareness for the roughly 22 veterans who die by suicide every day.

In 2021, Men's Health published an article featuring Rush's daily routine, which included him eating eight meals a day and up to 10,000 calories and only sleeping for 2 hours every night.  Some of his claims were received with skepticism by the professional bodybuilding community.  SOURCE: Wikipedia

To visit the website of Chef Rush, CLICK HERE...

Tiger

 

Edge Computing

Edge computing is a distributed information technology (IT) architecture in which client data is processed at the periphery of the network, as close to the originating source as possible.

Data is the lifeblood of modern business, providing valuable business insight and supporting real-time control over critical business processes and operations. Today's businesses are awash in an ocean of data, and huge amounts of data can be routinely collected from sensors and IoT devices operating in real time from remote locations and inhospitable operating environments almost anywhere in the world.

But this virtual flood of data is also changing the way businesses handle computing. The traditional computing paradigm built on a centralized data center and everyday internet isn't well suited to moving endlessly growing rivers of real-world data. Bandwidth limitations, latency issues and unpredictable network disruptions can all conspire to impair such efforts. Businesses are responding to these data challenges through the use of edge computing architecture.

In simplest terms, edge computing moves some portion of storage and compute resources out of the central data center and closer to the source of the data itself. Rather than transmitting raw data to a central data center for processing and analysis, that work is instead performed where the data is actually generated -- whether that's a retail store, a factory floor, a sprawling utility or across a smart city. Only the result of that computing work at the edge, such as real-time business insights, equipment maintenance predictions or other actionable answers, is sent back to the main data center for review and other human interactions.

Thus, edge computing is reshaping IT and business computing. Take a comprehensive look at what edge computing is, how it works, the influence of the cloud, edge use cases, tradeoffs and implementation considerations.  READ MORE...

Locked Out

 

Cognitive Computing

The goal of cognitive computing is to simulate human thought processes in a computerized model. Using self-learning algorithms that use data mining, pattern recognition and natural language processing, the computer can mimic the way the human brain works.

While computers have been faster at calculations and processing than humans for decades, they haven’t been able to accomplish tasks that humans take for granted as simple, like understanding natural language, or recognizing unique objects in an image.


Some people say that cognitive computing represents the third era of computing: we went from computers that could tabulate sums (1900s) to programmable systems (1950s), and now to cognitive systems.

These cognitive systems, most notably IBM ’s Watson, rely on deep learning algorithms and neural networks to process information by comparing it to a teaching set of data. The more data the system is exposed to, the more it learns, and the more accurate it becomes over time, and the neural network is a complex “tree” of decisions the computer can make to arrive at an answer.

What can cognitive computing do?

For example, according to this TED Talk video from IBM, Watson could eventually be applied in a healthcare setting to help collate the span of knowledge around a condition, including patient history, journal articles, best practices, diagnostic tools, etc., analyze that vast quantity of information, and provide a recommendation.  READ MORE.