First Blog

  A New Category of Impossible Problems Consider a new category of problems, impossible because they exist without clear solutions. In some cases, there are no possible solutions. Many of these problems are deeply embedded in systems, often going unnoticed or unrecognized. Corporate or national interests can easily conceal their presence or remain unaware of them. There may come a day when systems become so vast that they must be rejected, as their failure could lead to global disaster. Here are five examples, many of which involve significant government involvement in their creation. A. Global System Dependencies No company should be so globally pervasive that a failure in its systems could cause a worldwide catastrophe. This is particularly true for critical systems like airline booking, television networks, and health systems. For example, a technical issue identified by global cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike in its antivirus software for Microsoft Windows devices could have had cata

The most distressing things about the Boeing 737 Max jet problems are that they occur "on the cheap."  First Boeing rushes the FAA certification through, possibly with FAA  collusion.   Then, their navigation software wasn't tested well. It was even changed, but pilots were not in the information loop.   Third, Boeing has claimed flight simulators tests were neither needed nor required, even though the instrumentation configuration is closer to the 787 than the older model 737.   Finally, the company makes safety features optional. For an aircraft with a sticker price of $120+ million per each, and for the fact that more safety is better, this is almost the most striking. The amazing backdrop is that Boeing has traditionally been a near 100% reliable manufacturer of aircraft. Safe, efficient, and durable. All four points to serious personal problems, at the highest levels.  --------------------- Today, the amount of health information is doubling every seven m

Most of us have debt.   We may owe money to the bank or favors to our friends.   We may owe allegiance to our country, company, or commitments.   We may owe a debt to ourselves for things we have or have not done.   We live in a sea of debt, most of it simply the cost of living.   Those of us without debt are either lucky or just not living.    Another form of debt, technical debt , has emerged only in last 25 years.   Originally, it was created as an aspect of computer code.   When a large code is created, many decisions must be made.   Often budget or time issues take a commanding position.   Sometimes, the quality of the software engineers is not up to the tasks of the complex demands.   Similarly, the knowledge base can be insufficient to proceed correctly.    The orders may be, “Get the code online and quickly, and reduce the costs wherever possible.”   The debt is with the readjustments, fixes, and rewriting of the code as it fails or becomes outdated.   Similar notio

Encryption  Lately, we've been hearing of peccadillos and possibly serious and illegal uses of email by high level national figures, e.g. General David Petraeus and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson. In most cases, the messages have been read by unwanted persons, much to the unhappiness and ruination of the senders. If you really want your messages to be secure, you need to encrypt them, not with a secret code ring, but with secure but simple to use software. It is free and available. Creating encrypted messages . If you must or just want to send encrypted messages, you want something simple to use. There is an easy and secure method. We'll show you how to use it. It is based on what was once considered the "unbreakable" Vigenere cipher. While this cipher is no longer unbreakable, breaking it would require (i) a whole lot of text to work with and (ii) a very powerful computing apparatus, and (iii) the desire of some party to deprypt you messages . Indeed, the decr