Yearly Archives: 2012

SL9B and Community Planning

This month, the community in Second Life celebrates its 9th birthday, otherwise known as SL9B. This seems to be the first year that the celebration is not sponsored or hosted by Linden Lab, the creators of Second Life. Instead, this year, Linden Lab announced the theme of the birthday would be community and that theRead… Read more »

Refactoring Success

“I don’t know how much more emphasized step 1 of refactoring could be: don’t touch anything that doesn’t have coverage. Otherwise, you’re not refactoring; you’re just changing shit.” – Hamlet D’Arcy It’s no secret that Agile and Lean methodologies have a lot in common. At Code for America we try to apply them both: inRead… Read more »

Multipurpose Biometric Access Cards for the DoJ, Better Weather Forecasting for the Navy, and More

Here is today’s federal cybersecurity and information technology news: The Department of Justice is developing biometric smartcards that will provide access to buildings, cloud databases, and mobile applications without a password. More here. The Office of Naval Research is pursuing several projects to improve weather forecasting through next-generation weather models. More here. LinkedIn is workingRead… Read more »

Discussion of Big Data in the Geospatial Intelligence Domain

The US Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF) held a Geoint Community Week June 4-8 2012 which included a technology day. The afternoon of 07 June was dedicated to fast-paced “ignite” style presentations from some of the key community thought leaders on geospatial data. At the end of these presentations Bob Gourley was asked to summarize andRead… Read more »

Hackers and Honeypots: Getting Things Done

It’s always been fashionable in the cybersecurity industry to throw up our hands and call cyber crime an intractable problem. We don’t have the technical skills to match hackers, attribution is impossible in cyberspace, we don’t have the legal framework for Internet crimes, or international cooperation is insufficient to go after the shadowy, transnational cabalRead… Read more »

New Bike Lanes Require City Council Approval

By Kimberly Leichtner, Associate Consultant Now that summer solstice is just around the corner (officially June 20, 2012), I figured it was time to brush the dust off that bike I got last summer and start riding to work. In fact, last month was National Bike Month sponsored by the League of American Bicyclists. AlthoughRead… Read more »

PowerPoint Debate Continues

He is a financial manager, whose his job typically means supervising other salespeople and involves extensive use of presenting materials to people. He says, “As a manager or employer, I want people who are good at PowerPoints. It’s an essential skill. What do you think?” The above quote is from a colleague on Gov Loop.Read… Read more »