At Harvard, Bill Gates Reflects on days from College to Present

Here is a video that many media people have focused on the fact that Bill admits ctrl-alt-del was a mistake.

Here is one example of focusing on the ctrl-alt-del.

Now comes a startling admission about the awkward 3-key command from Microsoft's co-founder, Bill Gates: Control-Alt-Delete was a mistake. 

Gates explained during an interview at Harvard University. 

"We could have had a single button [to log on to Windows]" Gates said. "But the guy who did the IBM keyboard design didn't want to give us our single button." 

Finally Gates gave up and admitted "It was a mistake." The Harvard auditorium crowd laughed and cheered. Now though some computer experts say Gates is mistaken to call Control-Alt-Delete a mistake.

After watching the video it was clear that Bill has refined his storytelling skills.  The video goes through the story of days at Harvard to early days at Microsoft, changes throughout the years, negotiating with IBM where IBM thought 200k-300k over 3 years was the volume and Microsoft was thinking the OS was much bigger, starting the Gates Foundation, leaving Microsoft, what keeps Bill thinking now.

The ctrl-alt-del is a funny moment, but there is many more interesting stories.

See What is Wrong with DCIM, now what?

I have been reading more with my new Kindle Paperwhite (2nd generation).  The Kindle is working the way I hoped and I am spending more time focused on reading and study.  One book I am reading now is 

Seeing What Others Don't: The Remarkable Ways We Gain Insights [Kindle Edition]

Gary Klein (Author)

I've also been working on some operational issues and mobile software.

This morning spending 45 minutes undisturbed reading "Seeing What Others Don't."  It hit me why DCIM doesn't work for many, and what is wrong with the approach to DCIM.  Testing the concept is easy, and most would agree with my perspective.  

Now what?

Do I write my epiphany/insight in a blog post?  Nahhh.  It is too hard to write up.  I think I'll just have more fun with the idea discussing it with some friends.  Besides the solution I came up with is too esoteric for the vast majority of people.  This post was one that I liked.

Here are bunch more articles from Psychology Today by Gary Klein.

Seeing What Others Don't

The remarkable ways we gain insights

by Gary Klein Ph.D.

Painful Insights

Once a person has an insight there's no going back to the previous way of seeing the world. But perhaps there are exceptions, such as patients who gain insights in one session and then seem to 'lose' the insight the next time. Read More

Mind-Stretchers

One way to escape fixation is to deliberately view events from a new angle. This entry describes five different scenarios we can play around with, or can use to help others: The Failure scenario, the Weak Signals scenario, the Turn-the-Tables scenario, the Successor scenario, and the Switch scenario. Read More

Helping People Gain Insights

How can we inspire other people to make discoveries? Read More

Insights on Demand

Can we get in the mood for breakthroughs? Read More

Three Keys to Unlocking Great Insights

We can’t plan for insights but we can still increase our chances for gaining them. Some of the most effective tactics run opposite to our usual tendencies. Read More

Beyond Perfection

Insights can take us beyond perfection by helping us discover what we're really after. Too often, people settle for perfection — the achievement of their initial goals. But insights let us identify richer goals than the ones we start out with. We gain enlightenment about our true needs. Read More

Insights Vs. Organizations

Most organizations claim—and sincerely believe—that they want to increase insights and put them to use. We shouldn’t let that sincerity fool us. Organizations inadvertently suppress the insights of their workers and they do it in ways that are ingrained and invisible. Organizations stifle insights because of forces locked deep inside their DNA. Read More

Cognitive Roadblocks

Even with the same information, some people gain an insight and others don't. There seem to be four main barriers that cut the chances of achieving an insight. Two of them are beyond our contol, but we may be able to do something about the other two. Read More

The Different Forms of Insight

Insights come in several forms. Most research uses the impasse form in which a person gets trapped by a flawed assumption and cannot find the solution to a puzzle without discarding this assumption. A second form depends on noticing contradictions and realizing that an accepted view must be incorrect. And a third form relies on noticing connections Read More

Hopelessly Irrational or Wonderfully Creative?

Insights pop into our mind without any warning, in contrast to controlled, logical thinking. Insights provide a complement to the heuristics-and-biases worldview. Sure, we have to worry about making bad judgments. But we also should celebrate our capacity for insights. Read More

Another Cloud Security Break, Adobe's Creative Cloud exposes 2.9 mil customers

Adobe has a blog post on a recent security breach of their creative cloud.

Important Customer Security Announcement

POSTED BY BRAD ARKIN, CHIEF SECURITY OFFICER ON OCTOBER 3, 2013 8:08 AM INEXECUTIVE PERSPECTIVES

Cyber attacks are one of the unfortunate realities of doing business today. Given the profile and widespread use of many of our products, Adobe has attracted increasing attention from cyber attackers. Very recently, Adobe’s security team discovered sophisticated attacks on our network, involving the illegal access of customer information as well as source code for numerous Adobe products. We believe these attacks may be related.

Our investigation currently indicates that the attackers accessed Adobe customer IDs and encrypted passwords on our systems. We also believe the attackers removed from our systems certain information relating to 2.9 million Adobe customers, including customer names, encrypted credit or debit card numbers, expiration dates, and other information relating to customer orders. At this time, we do not believe the attackers removed decrypted credit or debit card numbers from our systems. We deeply regret that this incident occurred. We’re working diligently internally, as well as with external partners and law enforcement, to address the incident. We’re taking the following steps:

And now it looks like it is getting worse.

Ruh-roh: Adobe breach is just the beginning, researcher says

by Barb Darrow

51 MINS AGO

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Other as-yet-unnamed companies have also been compromised, security whiz Alex Holden tells The ThreatPost blog.

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The Adobe source code breach disclosed last week was scary. Perhaps scarier still is that the perpetrators have hit other as-yet unnamed companies.

China's New East China Data Center has Local River as cooling Source

DatacenterDynamics has an article on a new East China Cloud Data Center.  Part of what is going on in China is the Cloud is being used to centralize the hosting of IT services.

Many domestic telecommunication players, large financial institutions and top 100 websites are also expected to use the Jiande cloud computing data center as a platform to enter into the cloud computing market and develop large high-end technology industry cluster.

When it is cold enough outside air will be used for cooling. When it gets too warm, then the river can be used as a cooling source.

General Manager of Zhejiang Yunkuaichuan Science and Technology CoHe Qing said the data center will draw on the nearby Xin’anjiang River’s constant water temperature - at about 17℃ year round - for cooling purposes.

When (the outside air) temperature is low, the data center can be partly or completely cooled by natural cooling, while the water in the cooling tower can be used as a cooling source; when (the outside air) temperature is above 15℃in wet-bulb temperature, the water of the Xin’anjiang River can be used as a cooling source.

Given Solar Panels are limiting Firefighters abilities, will Fire Insurance rates increase?

FoxNews covers the risk to Fire Fighters when Solar Panels are on a roof.  There are efforts to address this problem.

A 2010 report by the Fire Protection Research Foundation found that slipping or tripping on solar panels were potential hazards for firefighters, as well as the possibility of the roof collapse due to the weight of the panels, which are generally made of crystalline silicon or thin-film semiconductor material. The maximum voltage of most systems, meanwhile, is roughly 600 volts, which can cause shock or burns.

“The industry has to continue to work with the fire service community, both on education and updating building codes to meet firefighters’ needs,” Smirnow continued. “That’s really where I think we can make the most progress.”

Even after all these efforts it will most likely be riskier to fight a fire with solar panels on the roof which slows down the fighting of a fire.  This can increase the damage from a fire which then could trigger higher insurance rates.

We are at the beginning of solar panels on roofs and electric cars.  As much as these are better for the environment, when there is fire it is harder to put out the flames.

Besides the insurance issues there is a public perception issue.  GigaOm's Katie Fehrenbacher covers the Tesla's exposure with its care fire.

Will customers be worried about Model S cars catching on fire after collisions? And will that effect sales at all? An investigation in a couple of fires during safety testing with Chevy’s Volt back in 2011, seem to contribute to a considerable freeze in Volt sales for awhile. Fires certainly weren’t great publicity for Fisker’s electric cars back when those were on sale.

Large companies with diverse product lines can weather branding and publicity issues more easily than startups that have one product on the market. If that one product turns sour, there’s nothing else out there to prop up the brand.

But this fire issue could end up being another hurdle Tesla jumps over. Cars get in accidents, and bad things happen in accidents. But the company will likely have to work on its own PR campaign to be transparent but also soothe any worried customers. And the good news is that Tesla has always been particularly adept at PR and marketing, so expect some type of reaction, and soon.