Microsoft Research Reclaims Value of Pi

Posted on April 1, 2008 by lewisshepherd
pi-techFACT: Educators in the state of Alabama are chafing as the state celebrates a dubious anniversary: today marks ten years since the Alabama state legislature voted to change the value of the mathematical constant pi from 3.14159… to the “Biblical value” of 3.0.  Ramifications were felt across the state. 
Now, a team of Microsoft Research computer scientists have announced success in a groundbreaking effort to refactor the Biblical value, using modern high-performance computing hardware and machine-translation technologies on the original Old Testament texts.
  
ANALYSIS:  Looking back, an April 1998 issue of Science and Reason newsletter written by physicist Mark Boslough recounts the political and cultural battles which went behind the Alabama legislative change. The legislature of the “Yellowhammer State” justified the change by citing biblical injunction. As one supporter put it: “the Bible very clearly says in I Kings 7:23 that the altar font of Solomon’s Temple was ten cubits across and thirty cubits in diameter, and that it was round in compass.”

The use of “3.0” as the value of pi led to problems in schools, businesses, and local scientific pursuits, including a group of frustrated engineers at the NASA research facility in Huntsville.  According to NASA/Huntsville’s director of special projects “Dr.” Jim Simon (doctorate pending), “We had strayed from using our Microsoft software and instead had been trying to figure out how to use an advanced Google search platform, which was sold to us as a powerful Cloud Computing system.”

Unfortunately, that effort proved frustrating for the “rocket scientists” any time they used calculations involving pi, based on the Alabama-standard value of 3.0, mostly because they were under the mistaken impression that they were contractually barred from using Cloud Computing on any sunny days. Given the hospitable local weather that left them unable to use their computers for an average of 290 days each year.

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From Microsoft’s Cloud – PopFly

Posted on March 28, 2008 by lewisshepherd

I mentioned PopFly in my last post – many Web users are now beginning to appreciate how it enables the fun and ease of innovation for non-technical people. Go to www.popfly.com/ and set up your own account (free of course), and you’ll be able to create usable, powerful “tools” out of the Cloud, or with your own data. 

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A Roadmap for Innovation – from Center or the Edge?

Posted on March 28, 2008 by lewisshepherd

Fact:   In marking its five-year anniversary earlier this month, the Department of Homeland Security released a fact sheet touting the department’s accomplishments in that time, including “establish[ing] the Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) to provide a 24-hour watch, warning, and response operations center, which in 2007 issued over 200 actionable alerts on cyber security vulnerabilities or incidents. US-CERT developed the EINSTEIN intrusion detection program, which collects, analyzes, and shares computer security information across the federal civilian government. EINSTEIN is currently deployed at 15 federal agencies, including DHS, and plans are in place to expand the program to all federal departments and agencies.”

Analysis:  I’m not going to write, in this post at least, about US-CERT and EINSTEIN in particular. I will point out that some writers have been skeptical of “Big DHS” progress on cyber security up to now, and the anniversary was an occasion for much cynical commentary. 

cnet-news.jpgCharles Cooper in his popular Coop’s Corner blog on CNet wrote that “when it comes to network security, DHS appears to be more of a wet noodle than even its sharpest critics assumed… Talk with security consultants and former government officials involved with DHS and you come away wondering what these folks do all day.”

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Silverlight 2.0: It’s “1 better than 1.0”

Posted on February 22, 2008 by lewisshepherd
Last week I was visiting an intelligence community facility which has been known for several years for housing some of the brightest and most innovative adopters of Web 2.0 approaches for classified systems. I could say who and where, but then I’d have to… well, not kill anyone, just apologize to all my other friends at other agencies who think they’re the cat’s meow on classified Web 2.0. (With any luck this anonymity now makes each of them think, “Wait, who’s more advanced than we are?  How can we catch up??!”)Well, it turns out they’re excited about something new & cool they would like to use.

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Opening Doors to Interoperability

Posted on February 21, 2008 by lewisshepherd

I had to write a freshman term paper on Immanuel Kant, and chose as a topic his role in sparking the German Enlightenment, from which I at least learned the word Aufklarung … which surprisingly doesn’t come up much in normal conversation, even when I’m in Germany. But I’ve been thinking about that movement and its ramifications quite a bit, because of the ongoing technology enlightenment driven by “open-source” approaches.

When I announced I was joining Microsoft, several of my friends in the open-source-software “movement” raised their eyebrows and ribbed me for joining the dark side… although the brighter ones also pointed out several important trends and markers through 2006 and 2007, changes in Microsoft behavior and approach which appeared to signal that the company was tacking in a much more open direction. Ray Ozzie’s joining of the company, and his announced projects, were taken as significant, along with several software launches (both in the Live world and elsewhere) with fundamentally open foundations.

Today the company is making public what Steve Ballmer and Ray Ozzie are calling “important changes to our technology and business practices that will enhance the interoperability of our products and expand the technical information we share with developers, partners, customers, and competitors.” All to the good, including more comprehensive information about the new “Interoperability by Design” approach.

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Mashup Markoff

Posted on February 10, 2008 by lewisshepherd

popfly.jpgJohn Markoff has a great story (that phrase belongs on a cut-n-paste clipboard) in today’s NY Times about PopFly, one of my favorite new Microsoft programs because it is so darned fun, and easy, and flexible – and potentially revolutionary.

I’m both a friend and fan of Markoff, but read his piece and you’ll see what I mean, as the examples he cites are pretty cool – or jump to the site itself.

PopFly is getting a lot of attention and coverage, landing on PCWorld’s list in December of “25 Most Innovative Products of the Year.”

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Driving during the Super Bowl? Use a Mashup First

Posted on February 2, 2008 by lewisshepherd

Fact: According to a report, “Taking Back the Airwaves” in the Buffalo News last month, “Listeners’ relationship with radio has changed in the last 25 years. Radio used to be the main source of music, … but now, like other industries, radio is fighting to reinvent itself in a digital age.”

Analysis: Let’s say you were an Air Force mission planner, and wanted to plan a particular flight over enemy territory.  Time-honored practices (and traditionally clunky but powerful software built custom for the purpose) allow you to overlay the enemy’s known radar-emitting sites, using circles or shapes to indicate the covered and non-covered areas, and to do the same with anti-aircraft missile ranges, allowing the precise planning of a safe flight route.

Now let’s look at a nifty adaptation, showing that there are much more fun and practical everyday uses of such an approach – and now new technologies make it much easier and faster to accomplish! Continue reading →

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The Future of Army’s “Future Combat Systems”

Posted on January 24, 2008 by lewisshepherd

Fact:  The U.S. Army is currently in the midst of a multi-year, $6 billion software development program which it says “dwarfs Microsoft Windows.”

Analysis: The Washington Post did a long piece on the U.S. Army’s gargantuan Future Combat Systems program today, not overly critical but quite skeptical. 

Some highlights of the program itself, which has its own comprehensive site maintained by the Army: 

  • FCS is the “Big Kahuna” of Army modernization, full-on system-of-systems;
  • It’s a $200 billion program, called the most thorough modernization of the Army since WWII;
  • All depends on a massive software development effort led by Boeing; 
  • The S/W development cost alone is around $6 billion (H/W costs are much larger, for the actual weapons, tanks, etc.).

When I was serving at the Defense Intelligence Agency, I was aware that (a) everyone associated with FCS had their fingers crossed and eyes closed when talking about it; (b) everyone not associated with it used the same tone of voice about FCS as they used about FBI’s Virtual Case File and NSA’s Trailblazer – two well-known large-scale failed technology programs.  Many people who know more about FCS than I do consider it a pipe-dream (here’s a good Heritage Foundation backgrounder on the program).  Yet the program continues to spend billions and the Army is slogging on with it.

So here’s what I really think about it: Continue reading →

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The press of words… in WordPress

Posted on September 5, 2007 by lewisshepherd

Fact: My Requirements & Research Group at DIA was asked to provide an assessment for the Intelligence Community’s Intelink blogging system – whether to stay with the original software adopted in 2005, or move to something a little more capable. We recommended WordPress, which has just been officially turned on.

Analysis: Getting ready to use WordPress as my own personal standard blog software here (used Blogger before)… imported some of the old stuff, yet it imperfectly stalled and wouldn’t cough up all of the old stuff. Came up with nifty new name for the blog. Composed nifty new banner/logo.

Hmmm… now just need to write content!

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