I am spending some time with the family, so I'll refrain from surfing the web and blogging for a few days. I'll be back on Oct 15.
Are Spatial Skills one of the under valued skills of a data center engineer?
Designing a data center is a skill that you don't go to school for and learn from a book. Book learning works for math, science, english and of course reading. So, what kind of skill is needed to design a data center. One of the challenges is trade-off of getting things just right to reduce or eliminate the single point of failures. Operations and maintenance costs are not hidden surprises.
Here is an article on Spatial Intelligence to get you thinking of whether spatial skills are a different skill set to look for in a data center engineer.
The last two paragraphs explain the value of engineers.
I think we often don’t realize that engineers have invented so many things that we take for granted in our everyday lives. Consider this. The device you are reading this article from right now was invented by engineers who utilized their phenomenal spatial talents. There are many kids today who are spatially talented who have the potential to create amazing things that can improve our lives and society. We need to learn to value these beautiful minds.
We need to identify them. We need to provide a tailored education for them. And we need to place the tools in their hands so that they can help invent our future.
A specific example the author uses is how two of the brightest kids were not found by established testing standards.
Over 90 years ago, Lewis Terman attempted to identify the brightest kids in California. There were two young boys who took Terman’s test but who did not make the cutoff to be included in this study for geniuses. These boys were William Shockley and Luis Alvarez, who both went on to study physics, earn PhDs, and win the Nobel Prize. Why did they miss the cut? One explanation is that the Stanford-Binet, the test Terman used, simply did not include a spatial test.
Considering the current push for STEM education and our need for more STEM innovators, shouldn’t we be trying to find these talented minds who have a spatial rather than a verbal or mathematical bent?
Just because someone is good with words, numbers and going by the book doesn't make them the brightest.
But what about that kid who is a mechanical genius; who can take apart and put back together just about anything; who is like Robert Downey Jr.’s character in Iron Man, but who really has little interest in words or numbers? Is there a place for this talented kid in our school system? Do we value the talent of this individual as much as the talents of students who can write compelling essays, who can solve complex equations, and who can read great works of literature?
Robert Downey Jr. from Iron Man
A few tips and satellite imagery allows the curious to see bin Laden mock-up
The quality of map data has gotten a lot of news with Apple's move into maps. Google and Bing are the sources I always use to look for data center sites and study data centers. Much easier than taking a trip and stare through a fence if you can get that close. If you know where to look you can find Google, Microsoft, Amazon's data centers.
NBCnews has a post on cryptome.org finding the CIA training site for the assault on bin Laden's strong hold.
Bing.com/maps
A Bing Maps view of the Harvey Point Defense Testing Facility.
In the best-selling book “No Easy Day,” a retired Navy SEAL who was on the raid that killed Osama bin Laden revealed that training for the assault on the al-Qaida leader’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, took place in North Carolina.
Taking that information, the creators of the whistleblowing site Cryptome.org, apparently scoured satellite imagery of CIA facilities in North Carolina.
The original source is here.
Osama bin Laden Compound Raid Mock-up
A sends:
In No Easy Day, the book written by the Navy Seal about getting Bin Laden, he stated that they trained in North Carolina. If you go to Google Maps and put in these coordinates at Harvey Point Defense Testing (CIA training facility) there is nothing but an clearing in a field. If you go to the lower link in Virtual Globetrotting and look at the same location it appears to be the mock up training facility for the Bin Laden raid. It is not completed in the photo, but there is enough built to say it is an almost exact copy of Bin Laden's compound.
Google Maps
36.099724,-76.349428
Bing Maps
Having Bias is fueling growth in media, Unbias may not the best strategy
CNN has successfully advertised unbiased news as its strategy.
But CNN's real selling point in the age of dueling partisan networks Fox News and MSNBC is this, from CNN’s senior vice president and Washington bureau chief Sam Feist:
As the only cable news channel that has not picked sides in this election, CNN has a unique lens with which to cover these conventions. In Tampa and in Charlotte, we will give both parties an opportunity to showcase their platforms while also asking tough questions of Republicans and Democrats. Coverage of the conventions will dominate our air over two weeks as CNN's deep bench of anchors, political reporters and analysts help Americans make an informed choice about their vote.
What is media bias?
The most commonly discussed forms of bias occur when the media support or attack a particular political party, candidate, or ideology, but other common forms of bias include
- Advertising bias, when stories are selected or slanted to please advertisers.
- Corporate bias, when stories are selected or slanted to please corporate owners of media.
- Mainstream bias, a tendency to report what everyone else is reporting, and to avoid stories that will offend anyone.
- Sensationalism, bias in favor of the exceptional over the ordinary, giving the impression that rare events, such as airplane crashes, are more common than common events, such as automobile crashes.
- Concision bias, a tendency to report views that can be summarized succinctly, crowding out more unconventional views that take time to explain.
The Economist gets some numbers to compare Fox, CNN, and NBC, and guess what being unbiased isn't winning vs. the competition.
CNN’s woes
Unbiased and unloved
Life is hard for a non-partisan cable news channel
AN ELECTION should be good business for a cable news channel. Alas, this is less true if, like CNN, you try to be unbiased. When Mitt Romney says that 47% of Americans are moochers, or Barack Obama says that entrepreneurs didn’t build their own businesses, partisan viewers crave a partisan response. Either the candidate hates America or he is being quoted out of context.
Fox News assures conservative viewers that Democrats’ gaffes fall in the former category, and Republicans’ in the latter. MSNBC, vice versa. CNN tries to be fair. Viewers hate that. Its ratings in America are sliding, while Fox and MSNBC are doing well (see chart).
Think about this when you read technology publications. You may think they are unbiased, but unbiased does not necessarily beat the competition.
Only Gartner Analysts presenting at Gartner Data Center Conference, are you going?
About the only people I know who go to Gartner Data Center are vendors who have booths or are looking to network. I have actually run into a high school friend who loves Gartner for their guidance as they are lost without the reports. These are high school friends, not college friends or technical friends from high tech companies.
Curious I took a look at the program for this year's Gartner and all the speakers are Gartner analysts except Dave Barry. There are 47 Gartner analysts presenting
If you are attending as a vendor you better be ready to engage Gartner for their expertise to put you in the magic quadrant. BTW, that expertise is not free. :-)
Criticism
It has been pointed out that the criteria for the Magic Quadrant cater more towards investors and large vendors than towards buyers.[2]
Much of the criticism is focused on the lack of disclosure of the money received from the vendors it rates, raising conflict of interest issues. Also a source of criticism is the lack of disclosure on the vendor's component scores and the lack of transparency in Gartner's methodology used to derive the vendor's position on the MQ map.
I guess for my high school friend would like the presentations as they can match the analyst with the report. But is this an industry conference?
