Chances are, looking back on your life, you remember having an enemy who later became your friend. Kids also go through those off and on enemy-friend relationships, as do countries. Turning Germany into a friend after World War II proved far better than trying to condemn the country forever following World War I.
In the U.S. we learned at Senator John McCain's funeral service on September 1, 2018 last Saturday, even though he was captured and tortured for over five years in Hanoi during the Vietnam War, the Vietnamese now recognize him as someone who helped bring about the reconciliation of the United States and Vietnam.
Haiphong harbor, once mined by the U.S. during the Vietnam War, now is valued as an import/export hub needed to handle U.S. trade pulling out of China. In February, 2019, President Trump and North Korea's Kim Jong-un chose Vietnam for their meeting to discuss demilitarization of the Korean peninsula and lifting the crippling economic sanctions that keep North Korea from enjoying the prosperity South Korea and Vietnam now enjoy.
Today, both the United States and Vietnam continue to contest China's claim to "indisputable sovereignty" over the Spratly Islands and their adjacent waters in the South China Sea. After declaring in 2015 no intention of militarizing its artificial islands there, China now has radar installations, reinforced concrete bunkers, and missiles on three Spratly Islands west of the Philippines, a compliant challenger dependent on Chinese investment. China also has landed bombers in the Parcel Islands disputed with Vietnam.
Vietnam, nonetheless, with its powerful military force, successfully prevented China from locating an oil exploration rig in its waters. At home, Vietnam has experienced anti-Chinese protests. Meanwhile, in its ongoing challenge to excessive maritime claims by all countries violating the international Law of the Sea Convention, a U.S. destroyer's Freedom of Navigation Operation sailed within 12 miles of one of China's seven artificial islands in May, 2018. Then, the US canceled an invitation to China to participate in annual naval drills off Hawaii and invited Vietnam instead.
Vietnam also has challenged China's claims in the South China Sea by building two of its own artificial islands on the Nanhua Reef in the Spratly Island chain. According to China, the reef where Vietnam built is only above water at low tide, and typhoon "Jasmine" washed away much of the reclaimed land dredged up from the ocean floor. China also was proud to add Vietnam used a technique inferior to the way China sucks up sand for its taller islands.
Both low tech and high tech industries benefit from Vietnam's and the US's short memories. Check clothes labels, and you probably will see a number of items were made in Vietnam. At the same time, the oncology treatment IBM's Watson chose at Phu Tho General Hospital enabled a patient to move and eliminate the need for painkilling medication. Google Brain and technology experts also applaud Vietnamese Dr. Le Viet Quoc's effort to make deep learning a reality and to incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) into advertising research.
At "Age of AI and Vietnamese Enterprises," a Hanoi summit on July 25, 2018, more than 400 AI, economists, and financial experts and delegates from Vietnam's leading firms heard Harvard's James Furman urge private-government cooperation on AI research and applications. Vietnam's own Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment told the summit's older generation to eliminate obstacles preventing companies from making full use of younger employees with math skills and an interest in new technology.
Modeled on Silicon Valley, California, Vingroup JSC, a Vietnamese conglomerate worth about $3 billion, intends to consolidate its diversified businesses in VinTech City, where the focus will be technology development (including development of new generation materials), applications, manufacturing, and services. A sub-unit will house the Big Data Institution and Vin Hi-Tech Institution.Vietnam finds the key to using Big Data effectively is creating teams that include Big Data technology experts and those with a full understanding of the industry using the data. Working together, technology and industry partners are best able to incorporate unstructured data about customer activities, such as internet use and applications, with structured and semi-structured industry data in order to develop new digital products and services. Just like in the United States, Vietnam knows data found to have great long-term value for a company, needs to be protected from nearby and distant competitors, even if they are friends.
Showing posts with label computer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label computer. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 5, 2018
Friday, August 24, 2018
Cryptocurrency for Kids (and adults)
Strip away its digital aspect, and cryptocurrency transactions are monetized barter exchanges between two people. Or, you can think of cryptocurrency exchanges as one person deciding how much of a new kind of money he or she has and is willing to pay for an item or service. No paperwork is involved in what is essentially a secret transaction between two people.
In a regular barter trade, a young person might try to find a student willing to trade a Pikachu card for one or more Pokemon cards. But in a cryptocurrency-like system, a young person offers to buy the Pikachu card with, let's say, some Monopoly money (or money students themselves design and distribute). A student is willing to sell the Pikachu card for a certain amount of Monopoly money, because she or he needs that amount of Monopoly money to buy a bag of chips from a student willing to accept that amount of Monopoly money. A student could, for example, use created currency to make a major trade, or a number of smaller trades, to receive items that could be sold, maybe at a yard sale, for a lot of real, government-issued money.
Unless all Monopoly money is going to disappear from all Monopoly games, families, students, and classrooms need to begin designing their own currency and agreeing how much each person receives in his and her accounts. It can be lots of fun to begin listing the items that can be sold: candy and cookies; unusual pens and pencils; socks; hair accessories; little stuffed animals; friendship bracelets and key chains. Services also can be exchanged for new currencies. Students can be paid to teach others to make different types of paper airplanes, braid hair in a certain way, throw a football or Frisbee, solve a math problem, or fold an Origami crane. Around the home, parents and children might sell services for new currencies to buy privileges. Of course, it is unlikely that services, purchased with created currency, could be resold for real money.
A do-it-yourself cryptocurrency system exposes some of the problems associated with cryptocurrency, such as Bitcoin, in the real world. You have to find another person who has what you want; who is willing to accept your particular kind of cryptocurrency (There is more than Bitcoin); who is willing to create no paper trail of the transaction; who will accept no changes, such as merchandise returns; and who wants to keep the transaction secret. Basing a subscription service on cryptocurrency is unlikely. Who would be wiling to hand over currency to receive a cupcake every moth or a weekly classroom newspaper, if they received no receipt showing they were entitled to the cupcakes or newspapers? Then, there is the problem of someone stealing your currency. In real life, cryptocurrency systems based on digital transactions currency has been known to disappear with the click of a key before a transaction is confirmed. Unlike savings held in a bank and protected by a government agency, cryptocurrency funds enjoy no such guarantee.
Bitcoin cryptocurrency uses the SHA256 algorithm to confirm each transaction as part of a blockchain, to notify all participants in its network of each transaction, and to enable participants to keep track of the balances in each other's accounts. But, before a transaction is confirmed, it can be altered.
In a regular barter trade, a young person might try to find a student willing to trade a Pikachu card for one or more Pokemon cards. But in a cryptocurrency-like system, a young person offers to buy the Pikachu card with, let's say, some Monopoly money (or money students themselves design and distribute). A student is willing to sell the Pikachu card for a certain amount of Monopoly money, because she or he needs that amount of Monopoly money to buy a bag of chips from a student willing to accept that amount of Monopoly money. A student could, for example, use created currency to make a major trade, or a number of smaller trades, to receive items that could be sold, maybe at a yard sale, for a lot of real, government-issued money.
Unless all Monopoly money is going to disappear from all Monopoly games, families, students, and classrooms need to begin designing their own currency and agreeing how much each person receives in his and her accounts. It can be lots of fun to begin listing the items that can be sold: candy and cookies; unusual pens and pencils; socks; hair accessories; little stuffed animals; friendship bracelets and key chains. Services also can be exchanged for new currencies. Students can be paid to teach others to make different types of paper airplanes, braid hair in a certain way, throw a football or Frisbee, solve a math problem, or fold an Origami crane. Around the home, parents and children might sell services for new currencies to buy privileges. Of course, it is unlikely that services, purchased with created currency, could be resold for real money.
A do-it-yourself cryptocurrency system exposes some of the problems associated with cryptocurrency, such as Bitcoin, in the real world. You have to find another person who has what you want; who is willing to accept your particular kind of cryptocurrency (There is more than Bitcoin); who is willing to create no paper trail of the transaction; who will accept no changes, such as merchandise returns; and who wants to keep the transaction secret. Basing a subscription service on cryptocurrency is unlikely. Who would be wiling to hand over currency to receive a cupcake every moth or a weekly classroom newspaper, if they received no receipt showing they were entitled to the cupcakes or newspapers? Then, there is the problem of someone stealing your currency. In real life, cryptocurrency systems based on digital transactions currency has been known to disappear with the click of a key before a transaction is confirmed. Unlike savings held in a bank and protected by a government agency, cryptocurrency funds enjoy no such guarantee.
Bitcoin cryptocurrency uses the SHA256 algorithm to confirm each transaction as part of a blockchain, to notify all participants in its network of each transaction, and to enable participants to keep track of the balances in each other's accounts. But, before a transaction is confirmed, it can be altered.
Saturday, April 14, 2018
Has DON'T Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Gone Too Far?
The absence of other customers in a store, where I was shopping, this week caused me to realize the growing number of options for NOT doing-it-yourself (DIY). Enter information about your style and size on an app, and you'll receive a selection of clothes. Decide what you want to eat and a meal to help you lose weight, a pizza, or the ingredients you need to prepare your own meal will turn up at your door. If you are willing to at least drive to a store, you can email your food, toys, or discount store shopping lists and the store will gather what you need/want and have your package ready for pick-up.
It's not just a matter of creating apps-platforms to engage attention, technology has decided how we manage our lives. Now, there even are apps telling us to stop using apps. It doesn't take a smartphone to ask young people:
It's not just a matter of creating apps-platforms to engage attention, technology has decided how we manage our lives. Now, there even are apps telling us to stop using apps. It doesn't take a smartphone to ask young people:
- Where would you like to travel?
- What would you like to eat?
- What is your favorite outfit?
- What world problem would you like to solve?
- How much would you like to weigh?
- What sport do you like to play?
- What kind of song would you like to hear?
- What GPA would you like to have?
- What kind of movie would you like to see?
Tuesday, September 5, 2017
Modern Deterrents
Watching today's young Japanese students push their desks to the side of the room and hide under them, as teachers pull shades over the windows to deflect flying glass, only reminds us this was a procedure that couldn't protect populations from nuclear attacks in the 1950s. Strategies designed to protect a retaliatory second strike weapon system after an initial surprise bombing in the 1960s are out-of-date as well.
Nuclear-equipped enemies in the 21st century include minor nations and possible terrorist groups that have nothing to lose. Major players have cyber soldiers that don't move on their stomachs. They keep coming without food or sleep. Not only nuclear fallout can contaminate an environment, but climate change and asteroid collisions with Earth also threaten the world's food supply.
We are seeing people taking survival into their own hands. One of the characters on "Orange is the New Black" represents those families who prepare their own caves with guns and a stockpile of food and water. Refugees already begin walking or taking to the sea in leaking boats and rafts to escape war-torn areas. Farmers are developing cross-breeding for livestock and hydroponic and aquaponic growing methods to produce food in new ways.
Computer hacking and nanotechnology offer new defensive options for compromising the performance of all sorts of enemy systems. Enemies know how each others guidance systems work. Besides shooting nuclear ICBMs out of the sky and scattering radioactive particles over the Earth, redirecting ICBMs (and any enemy weapons) to strike whoever launched them has the potential to transform MAD (mutually assured destruction) into SAD (self assured destruction) and cause the most fearsome tyrant to try to scamper for a submarine.
Programmers already send drones to destroy targets as small as individuals. There are "Hurt Locker" experts who disable bombs on land. Could drones disable nuclear missiles in space? In films, astronauts also keep asteroids from hitting Earth, and furry little forest creatures cause oncoming cyber soldiers to crash by tangling their legs in vines. Meanwhile, high-tech Star Wars airmen penetrate fortresses through air supply vents.
In the past, shields have blocked arrows, gun powder reduced castle walls to rubble, tanks swept around the Maginot Line, and an armada of fishing boats rescued an army, while prayer and repentance saved Nineveh from destruction. Alliances change from century to century, but the darkness of night, fog, snow, and a blinding sunrise still have the power to deter an effective military response.
The wise expect an unending race between offense and defense and use their smarts to triumph.
Nuclear-equipped enemies in the 21st century include minor nations and possible terrorist groups that have nothing to lose. Major players have cyber soldiers that don't move on their stomachs. They keep coming without food or sleep. Not only nuclear fallout can contaminate an environment, but climate change and asteroid collisions with Earth also threaten the world's food supply.
We are seeing people taking survival into their own hands. One of the characters on "Orange is the New Black" represents those families who prepare their own caves with guns and a stockpile of food and water. Refugees already begin walking or taking to the sea in leaking boats and rafts to escape war-torn areas. Farmers are developing cross-breeding for livestock and hydroponic and aquaponic growing methods to produce food in new ways.
Computer hacking and nanotechnology offer new defensive options for compromising the performance of all sorts of enemy systems. Enemies know how each others guidance systems work. Besides shooting nuclear ICBMs out of the sky and scattering radioactive particles over the Earth, redirecting ICBMs (and any enemy weapons) to strike whoever launched them has the potential to transform MAD (mutually assured destruction) into SAD (self assured destruction) and cause the most fearsome tyrant to try to scamper for a submarine.
Programmers already send drones to destroy targets as small as individuals. There are "Hurt Locker" experts who disable bombs on land. Could drones disable nuclear missiles in space? In films, astronauts also keep asteroids from hitting Earth, and furry little forest creatures cause oncoming cyber soldiers to crash by tangling their legs in vines. Meanwhile, high-tech Star Wars airmen penetrate fortresses through air supply vents.
In the past, shields have blocked arrows, gun powder reduced castle walls to rubble, tanks swept around the Maginot Line, and an armada of fishing boats rescued an army, while prayer and repentance saved Nineveh from destruction. Alliances change from century to century, but the darkness of night, fog, snow, and a blinding sunrise still have the power to deter an effective military response.
The wise expect an unending race between offense and defense and use their smarts to triumph.
Monday, November 7, 2016
Secret Codes
If you communicate with emojis, you might be using a secret code that people who speak another language can understand, but some who speak your own language can't. That's the essence of secret codes. You send information you intend someone to understand and hide your messages from everyone else. Of course, spies do this all the time. They report plans, troop movements, economic conditions, and the health and characteristics of key officials enemies want to hide.
Not only is it necessary to write secrets in code and in things like lemon juice that disappears until the paper its written on is heated, but methods for sending messages also are important. Short radio bursts are used and messages are hidden in James Bond-type devices. During the Revolutionary War, Nathan Hale, considered the first U.S. spy, unfortunately hid a secret message in his boot which was easily discovered when he was caught by the British.
You and a friend might make up a secret code that gives words different meanings or uses the third letter in every word to make a sentence when those third letters are written together. If you want to send your message during a class, how would you get it to your friend three rows away? Or you might wrap a long strip of paper around a baseball bat, write your message vertically on the paper, unwind the paper and hide it somewhere. In order to read your message, a friend would have to wind the paper around a bat that was the same size as yours.
Decoding mistakes can happen. In 1916, Elizabeth Wells Gallup claimed she found coded messages from Sir Francis Bacon hidden in Shakespeare's scripts. Using only words written in one particular typeface, she found a message Bacon left in Richard II that led her to believe he said he wrote the play. When Elizabeth and William Friedman looked at Gallup's work in 1955, they found the different typefaces she relied on were caused by accidental primitive printing technology, not the intentional work of Bacon or anyone else.
Suppose you and a friend have a secret meeting or message hiding place. Spies have left messages in pumpkins, under bridges, under floor boards, and in bottles in the hollows of trees. You can signal your friend that you want to meet or you have left a message by methods similar to those spies have used. Where spies have put chalk marks on mail boxes, you could put a chalk mark on a friend's locker. Instead of putting a flower pot on a balcony, you could put a toy at your window or blink a flashlight. Slaves escaping on the Underground Railroad used to look for safe houses that had statues positioned in a certain way out front.
Fans of Harry Potter know his owl Hedwig carried secret messages. Homing pigeons performed the same task in wartime. Could you train a pet to do the job?
Secret codes often are very difficult to decipher. Letters carved into the sculpture, "Krypto," outside the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency remained a puzzle until an analyst spent eight years on his lunch hours using pencil and paper to figure out three of the sections on the stone. Even then, what the message meant was unclear. The movie, The Imitation Game, showed how Germans in World War II created an impossible to crack Enigma code that caused a British decoder at its secret Bletchley facility to build a computer to try millions of letter combinations. That didn't work until one person realized each transmission began with a weather report. By comparing each day's weather with the letters used in that day's secret message the number of combinations the computer had to try was reduced and messages Germans sent regarding enemy ships they intended to destroy could be read faster.
Nowadays, it is possible to both code and decode secret messages by computer. It also is possible to hack into messages sent by computer unless security measures, such as the use of secure passwords and default passwords, are taken. TIME magazine (Nov. 7, 2016) reported that on October 21, 2016 cyber hackers even tapped into the unsecured Internet of Things (remotely controlled internet connected surveillance cameras, printers, digital video recorders) and used them to activate a virus, Mirai, (the Japanese word for "the future") that overwhelmed servers at one company with malicious traffic that prevented legitimate users from reaching intended receivers. The tasks of preparing a truly secret code and transferring secret codes are becoming more difficult every day.
(For more information about how emojis communicate, see the earlier post, "Communicate without Words.")
Not only is it necessary to write secrets in code and in things like lemon juice that disappears until the paper its written on is heated, but methods for sending messages also are important. Short radio bursts are used and messages are hidden in James Bond-type devices. During the Revolutionary War, Nathan Hale, considered the first U.S. spy, unfortunately hid a secret message in his boot which was easily discovered when he was caught by the British.
You and a friend might make up a secret code that gives words different meanings or uses the third letter in every word to make a sentence when those third letters are written together. If you want to send your message during a class, how would you get it to your friend three rows away? Or you might wrap a long strip of paper around a baseball bat, write your message vertically on the paper, unwind the paper and hide it somewhere. In order to read your message, a friend would have to wind the paper around a bat that was the same size as yours.
Decoding mistakes can happen. In 1916, Elizabeth Wells Gallup claimed she found coded messages from Sir Francis Bacon hidden in Shakespeare's scripts. Using only words written in one particular typeface, she found a message Bacon left in Richard II that led her to believe he said he wrote the play. When Elizabeth and William Friedman looked at Gallup's work in 1955, they found the different typefaces she relied on were caused by accidental primitive printing technology, not the intentional work of Bacon or anyone else.
Suppose you and a friend have a secret meeting or message hiding place. Spies have left messages in pumpkins, under bridges, under floor boards, and in bottles in the hollows of trees. You can signal your friend that you want to meet or you have left a message by methods similar to those spies have used. Where spies have put chalk marks on mail boxes, you could put a chalk mark on a friend's locker. Instead of putting a flower pot on a balcony, you could put a toy at your window or blink a flashlight. Slaves escaping on the Underground Railroad used to look for safe houses that had statues positioned in a certain way out front.
Fans of Harry Potter know his owl Hedwig carried secret messages. Homing pigeons performed the same task in wartime. Could you train a pet to do the job?
Secret codes often are very difficult to decipher. Letters carved into the sculpture, "Krypto," outside the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency remained a puzzle until an analyst spent eight years on his lunch hours using pencil and paper to figure out three of the sections on the stone. Even then, what the message meant was unclear. The movie, The Imitation Game, showed how Germans in World War II created an impossible to crack Enigma code that caused a British decoder at its secret Bletchley facility to build a computer to try millions of letter combinations. That didn't work until one person realized each transmission began with a weather report. By comparing each day's weather with the letters used in that day's secret message the number of combinations the computer had to try was reduced and messages Germans sent regarding enemy ships they intended to destroy could be read faster.
Nowadays, it is possible to both code and decode secret messages by computer. It also is possible to hack into messages sent by computer unless security measures, such as the use of secure passwords and default passwords, are taken. TIME magazine (Nov. 7, 2016) reported that on October 21, 2016 cyber hackers even tapped into the unsecured Internet of Things (remotely controlled internet connected surveillance cameras, printers, digital video recorders) and used them to activate a virus, Mirai, (the Japanese word for "the future") that overwhelmed servers at one company with malicious traffic that prevented legitimate users from reaching intended receivers. The tasks of preparing a truly secret code and transferring secret codes are becoming more difficult every day.
(For more information about how emojis communicate, see the earlier post, "Communicate without Words.")
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
Communicate without Words
It started with iconic computer symbols and emoticon faces made out of punctuation marks, like :-). Then, Japanese emoji (e for picture; moji for character) were used to communicate on social networks, write books, and create digital dictionaries. Now, artist Yung Jake has used emojis from emoji.ink to "draw" portraits of celebrities.According to trendwatching.com, Mauritius-based app company, Oju Africa, has created 56 African emojis for Android users that also can be used with apps, such as WhatsApp and Twitter. For cat lovers, free cat emojis are said to be available from free.motitags.com. One caution, sometimes viruses are in free emojis.
Even before computers, however, people around world have been communicating with music. (See the earlier blog post, "Music of the Sphere.") In any language, the slightest musical mistake sounds awful. Across borders, music has been shown to have the ability to identify children who are in danger of falling behind in key language and math skills. Neuroscientists and neuropsychologists, such as Ani Patel and Nadine Gaab, have found that the mental demands required to play a musical instrument condition the brain to perform well in other areas: language comprehension, memory, attention, precision, switching between tasks, emotional maturity, and persistence. Maybe all diplomats should be required to study music, which seems to enhance the brain's networks for performing other tasks, like listening to each other in any language.
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