Did anyone else find The Apprentice a little boring this week? Though I wasn’t Breffny Morgan’s biggest fan (I thought he was a gobshite) I think I missed him this week.

This weeks episode had a curiously bland quality to it, a simple enough task for someone who was capable of a smidgen of creativity, and two teams that, for the most part got on well, with any mishaps simply being recorded as differences of opinion rather than what the public wanted to see which was a full blown argument. With dismemberment. Ahem.

But anyway, just when tonight’s episode seemed to be moving dangerously close to disinterest for me as a viewer, Aoiffe saved the day. Launching into a back-seat rant about Geraldine (Eliza Doolittle), she offered the one and only moment of real human behaviour in the episode. The two teams interactions with each other were boring. I’ve been involved in college groups that have been more volatile than them.

So it came down to Aoiffe to put a bit humanity into the episode, and to be fair, she has been doing so since the beginning. She’s been realistic as a human being. She’s acted like a normal person. If we don’t like someone, we’ll have an oul’ bitch about them.

The Apprentice, at the end of the day is reality TV, with not much reality. Granted, it’s set up with a few frills so those of us who refuse to watch the tripe, generic RTV like Big Brother can convince ourselves that “this is reality TV with substance”.

The candidates are cast. There’s no way that out of the whole country, the 14 that started in the house were the most promising individuals. Breffny was cast for comic relief, which he delivered admirably, saying exactly the wrong thing, at the wrong time, in the wrong place, (“You can take it with you when you’re drink-driving”) Aoiffe and Geraldine were always going to be set up as an example of the Upper-Lower class dichotomy, and to be fair, their stormy rapport was probably the most entertaining aspect of the series so far. That and Breffny, of course.

So with 4 weeks left, Lucinda, Steve, Stephen and Geraldine remain in the competition. Lucinda, I like. She seems the strongest candidate to me, a good all-rounder, she seems to be able to generate a plan straight away and work to it. Lacking a bit in creativity alright but then after Sam, it doesn’t surprise me that the remaining group are a bit wary of being interesting in presentations.

English Steve is a one-trick pony, albeit, he is the equivalent of a pony that can walk on its front legs while serving champagne off a tray on his back legs, but still just a pony.

Stephen the red-head, well we don’t really know a lot about him do we? If Breffny was the one to use nine lives, Stephen has managed to be in teams which didn’t require him to use lives. I suppose it’s a testament to him that he’s stayed out of the boardroom for the most part, he must be doing something right. But he’s incredibly bland, isn’t he?

Geraldine, I don’t like. Simple as that. I think she’s spoofed her way through a good few of the tasks, and I reckon her saving grace so far has been her “inner city” charm which Bill has naturally taken to, it being so close to his own heart.

At this point, I see Lucinda in the last two. And despite what I’ve said, I think Stephen Higgins may be there aswell. The other two will be fired, Steve for his one dimensional attitude, and Geraldine because, as Bill put it tonight, she’s done nothing more than be a runner.

I’ll stick with the series to see who wins. But I doubt I’ll enjoy it as much now that the human factor (apologies to Graham Greene) has left the building.

These last few years we have seen the appearance of a new phenomena: Glass Cockpits. They first appeared in airliners, but now we find them in general aviation aircrafts (Cessna, Cirrus…). I have personally flown in aircraft equipped with those systems (C172 with G1000, or Cirrus with Avidyne); and I have to admit that these things are awesome! Almost all information you could ever want to have appears just in front of you, on those wide screens, or at least are accessible in a few clicks or twists. They must be a real relief for pilots in single pilot, “high performance,” aircrafts (like pocket jets).

When you fly those types of plane you probably have a certain flight experience and you will probably be flying most of the times under IFR, which is what those avionics are made for and play perfectly their role and help a lot by providing clear situation awareness. But, now, those avionics, also equip aircraft that are flown by less experienced pilot or even flight students and they use them to fly, a non negligible amount of time, under VFR. How can you teach someone to fly looking outside (which is what VFR is supposed to be) when you have two big screens giving you all your parameters, or what is the point of teaching cross country when all you do is time in waypoints in a GPS?

And even for other pilot which have a little flight experience, for example me: I have mostly flown round dials aircrafts, but now that I’m in Daytona, I usually fly a Cessna 172 Nav III (which is the G1000 equipped aircrafts). And I have caught my self, flying VFR, continuously looking at those two big screens, whether if it’s to do a coordinate turn, or to see my position on the map, or to find other traffics… and I tried to prevent myself of looking too much inside, but it takes a big amount of energy just to try to focus outside and not inside.

An other dangerous fact on the use of new technology, like glass cockpits or even a simple GPS with a moving map function: They give a false impression of safety. I felt this feeling a couple times with the G1000, if their’s anything that could endanger you, an alarm will go on ( engine problem, abnormal attitude, or even incoming traffic…). This tends to decrease your concentration level, or even worst, it can make you think you can do things that can put your in serous danger. A good exemple of what NOT to do was given by this bonanza pilot, that a few weeks ago, departed for an air to air photo session with an Albatross. The weather wasn’t good and, in VFR, they intentionally passed in IMC, they had GPS with them, so he probably thought it wasn’t to dangerous to do that. It turned out that they clipped the side of a mountain; luckily for him and his passenger they only touched with the wingtip and they managed to come back and land safely. Would he have intentionally gone into IMC without any GPS, and not knowing his position? I doubt… (there was a video of this incident, filmed by one of the passengers, but unfortunately the video has been deleted)

Like I said earlier, those glass cockpit are awesome, but I think they aren’t adapted for VFR and so for most of the general aviation; you can’t have the same avionics suite perfectly a jet flying 360kts and a little single engine prop going 100kts.

Trying to understand the now

Last year I wrote 3 (rather long) thought experiments I pretentiously called ‘The human factor in Social media’. You can find part 1, part 2, and part 3 here. I was reading them back recently and thought about what came true of them so far. They weren’t meant to be future predictions, the thought experiment then was to understand the ‘now’.

Let’s see if we can make up the balance now.

1. Everything will connect with everything, walled gardens will be torn down -> But we will still need a destination

Is there an end thinkable to the growth of ‘walled gardens’? I argued then that at some point these walls will be torn down and the service would become a utility instead of a destination.

OpenID is taking off now, allowing you to log into services without creating yet another identity. Twitter gets more traffic from clients than from its main web site. Facebook is fiercely fighting to become the ‘de facto’ social platform.

However, Google is the only company that got this from the start. See for example their stealth social network. A Google account is something you can take along to almost anywhere. And now with Android exploding, Google will take your “home” into the mobile web. Google doesn’t lock you in, and by doing that they become more and more valuable to us. It’s the main reason why I think Android will eventually overtake the iPhone. Entrapment is a long-term failing strategy.

2. “Always on” will have a huge social impact -> But it will lead to a need to disconnect

I noticed last year that there was an imbalance between ‘on’ and ‘off’. I personally have felt the need to slow down and spent less time emerged in social networks and with the ‘biggest Internet invention’ the status update. The magic is gone.

I’ve seen more people doing that, but in essence I feel now that we haven’t reached a tipping point yet. More and more time is spend on short bursts of communications (often in the form of sending, instead of receiving), less time is spend on depth interactions. We seem to have forgotten that the basis for any good interaction is the ability to listen.

3. Information will be available anytime, anywhere, anyhow -> But the real value lies in people

This is a very actual problem we are facing now. the noise that we now have access to is immense. Following quantity has overtaken quality. Publishing quantity has overtaken sharing intentionally. Finding the right people or knowledge is a hard problem to solve. Friendfeed tried it with friend recommendations and failed. Twitter is overtaken by its addiction to growth instead of quality.

Instead of choosing the obvious solution the tech industry is already looking  for tech solutions (reputation, trust based algorithms). It’s a nice exercise but not as effective as the most obvious solution. Just scale down the nr of people you follow or interact with. There are tons of examples available of people stating that their Twitter experience and value increased considerably when they stopped auto following people, and started following people they had met in real-life. We can decide for ourselves who is important and who is not. You don’t really need a smart algorithm for that.

4. Public interaction using social media is exciting now -> But highly localized immersed interaction will be more important

Do I need to say FourSquare, Yelp, Loopt? The trend is obvious. There is much more value to be gained from highly localized networks and interactions. I said then:

Communities connected by location, interest, expertise, immersed into the physical world that surrounds them. We will see the same behavior there as we see now in the public, but the real value for the individual user will be obtained from these smaller communities. It will lead to less information and more knowledge. And this trend or effect will be driven by the most personal interaction device we have, the mobile phone.

5. Social media makes us all public figures -> This will lead to an accompanying need for privacy

This is a tricky one. It is something I feel strongly about. It’s not that everything needs to be private. I just want people to be in control of their own privacy. It’s a conversation that keeps popping up. We need a single place where we can store our identity online and from that decide what parts of it can be made available to other people or services.

Current practice shows that privacy is loosing ground quickly. Over 300M users on Facebook show that they either don’t understand or care about their privacy. Privacy is translated to the small domain of user – user interactions. I want it to cover service provider – user interactions as well. You can set your privacy to maximum on Facebook, but you can’t find a switch that protects you, your friends, your interactions from Facebook itself. You and your data are commercially exploited and no one knows or cares enough to do something about it. I have to be realistic about this and realize this is not a problem for most people.

What do you think about all of this? Does it make any sense? Let me know.

Bereits im vergangenen August berichteten wir über einen schweren Zwischenfall in der Fliegerei, bei dem eine chronische Schlafstörung des Kapitäns, in Kombination mit extremem Schlafmangel beider Piloten, beinahe zu einem Unfall geführt hatte (siehe Artikel zur Kategorie Human Factors vom 4.8.2009). Der aktuelle Fall jedoch, der sich vergangenen Mittwoch in den USA ereignet hat, stellt alles bisher Dagewesene in den Schatten: Ein Airbus A319 der “Northwest Airlines” überflog und verfehlte seinen Zielflughafen Minneapolis um sage und schreibe 150 Meilen (ca. 250 Kilometer). Der Grund: Die Piloten befanden sich eigenen Angaben zu Folge in einer hitzigen Diskussion über “airline policy” und verloren dabei angeblich die Übersicht über die Situation.

Experten gehen allerdings davon aus, dass die beiden Piloten während des Flugs  im Cockpit eingeschlafen waren. Schließlich gelang es der Flugsicherung erst nach über einer Stunde (!) mit der Maschine erneut Kontakt aufzunehmen. Der Airbus mit 147 Passagieren an Bord konnte schlussendlich jedoch sicher an seinem Zielflughafen landen. Sowohl der Cockpit- als auch der Flight Data Recorder wurden umgehend vom NSTB (National Safety and Transportation Board) für die Auswertung sichergestellt. Auf die Ergebnisse darf man gespannt sein, erscheint ein solcher Error im Bereich “Situational awareness” doch als nahezu unvorstellbar.

Das Arbeitspensum von Piloten erreicht heute, gerade in den USA, ein besorgniserregendes Ausmaß. So lassen sich mittlerweile schon mehrere Unfälle und Beinahe-Katastrophen dem Themenkreis “chronische Arbeitsüberlastung” zuordnen. Dass der aktuelle Zwischenfall keine Todesopfer gefordert hat, grenzt an ein Wunder. Man kann nur hoffen, dass er weiter dazu beiträgt, die ohnehin schon heftig geführte Diskussion über die Senkung der Maximalarbeitszeit für fliegendes Personal, weiter anzuheizen…

Bericht: CNN.com | Bild: Flickr by Cliff1066

Kim Vicente is a cognitive engineering professor at the University of Toronto and has been named by Times Magazine as a leader for the 21 century who will shape Canada’s future.

“Kim Vicente puts human simplicity into technology.” TIME Magazine

In his book, he writes about the relationship between humans and technology or the lack of it. Engineers can design an fully functioning product but is it useful if the common person cannot use it or make sense it? Vicente shows us how technology can be either dangerous or beneficial; that the human factor is the most important aspect of it. He provides useful frameworks for us to manage technology and shows us how it can impact us at all levels. A great read.

An employee enters the meet-me-room at a major carrier hotel in Los Angeles, New York, or Miami. He is a young guy recently graduated from high school, hired to do cable removal for circuit disconnects at minimum wage. Although young, he has a wife and child, and has recently been fighting with in-laws over his ability to support a family. Frustration and anger overcome his emotions, and he turns to the ladder rack jammed with cable and starts hammering at the cables for all he is worth.

Network operations centers around the world see circuits dropping, and customers with critical financial, military, Internet, and broadcast news services are shut down. In the space of about one minute our young employee has taken down several thousand individual circuits, creating near chaos in the global telecommunications community.

In their report on Trusted Access to Communications Infrastructure, the NSTAC Vulnerabilities Task Force advises “”it is important to recognize that any one individual with malicious intent accessing any critical telecommunications facility could represent a threat. The threat of insiders performing malicious acts also transcends each type of site discussed in this document.”

The event noted in part 2 of this series describing the outages in Northern California following damage to a manhole housing telecom was real. The resulting disruption to regional communications was a wakeup call to the telecom community, law enforcement, and communities affected. It is clear the perpetrator knew what he was doing, and knew exactly what vulnerabilities the major telecom companies had which he could exploit.

There have been many other cases such as Level 3 Communications loss of a major core router in 2006 supporting regional Internet services in London due to theft, a break-in at BT’s switching facility in Birmingham during the same period resulting in the loss of thousands of telephone lines, showing this is not just an American problem, but a global vulnerability.

The message is clear, as an industry our most obvious threat to information and communications security is not a natural disaster, it is people with industry knowledge or access to our critical facilities.

The Telecom and Data Center/Carrier Hotel Industry’s Role in Managing Human Security Risks

Data centers and central offices are in a constant state of change, maintenance, and growth. While facility network operations staff are generally long term employees, with a history of employment and performance, many others entering our data centers are not well known to the landlord.

Janitorial and maintenance staff are normally contracted to vendors, mechanical and electrical workers are contracted to maintenance and engineering companies, and construction contractors often use temporary staff from agencies such as “Labor Ready” and other day labor companies. In most cases data center or landlord employees are given a cursory background check prior to employment, however others entering even critical areas within the data center or central office meet-me-room may be entirely unknown to the facility.

While normally under some level of supervision, or access management, contractors, maintenance people, and even data center tenants are often free to move around the facility without direct security observation. As shown above, it would only take an angry, disgruntled, or undisciplined person seconds to cause a major calamity in our global communications system.

In a worst case, that person may be a terrorist with a detailed plan to cause damage to the facility once given even minimal access. High voltage electricity, water systems from cooling infrastructure, or access to switching equipment and cable interconnections are all exposed within the data center, and any element could be used to cause a major disruption within the meet-me-room or data center.

Most carrier hotels are located in “mixed-use” buildings, in high-rises with additional tenants who may not even be in the data center or telecom industry. This compounds the problem, as those tenants are often reluctant to comply with security and access requirements at the level of a critical telecom facility.

The issue becomes even more acute when we realize that much of the infrastructure supporting carrier hotels transits “risers” between floors, often through floors occupied by non-telecom tenants who may have physical access to riser space within their offices.

There are a few data centers within the United States where security is comprehensive enough to reduce the risk of malicious intent to a very low level. While many tenants find the access and supervision within the facility extreme, facility resources are protected from all but the most aggressive vandalism or attack.

The NSTAC recommends that in the US the telecom industry establish best-practices guidelines to screen personnel prior to unescorted or unrestricted access to critical facilities, such as carrier hotels and carrier central offices. This may include a national agency check to ensure the person requesting access does not already have a profile indicating they could potentially be a threat to the facility.

The US government may give this additional support, as much of the US government, state, and local communications services are supported either in carrier central offices or commercial carrier hotels.

Recommendations for the Communications Industry

While it is clear not all persons entering a data center or carrier hotel facility can be completely screened, there are tasks each carrier and commercial data center operations should complete. Those could include:

• Complete background checks for all direct employees
• Pre-employment screening which would include a personality profile (indicating if they are in a high risk category for emotional stress)
• Supervision of all contractors on site by a direct company employee who is aware of the risk posed for each type of equipment in proximity to the contractor (such as electrical equipment <UPS, breaker panels, switchgear, chilled water pipes, etc>)
• Training in situational awareness – being able to identify activities not normal for others in your facility
• Cooperation with law enforcement and other agencies
• Working with industry groups to create and follow an industry “best practices” for facility security and human resource management
• Ensure at least in the streets and areas immediately adjacent to the facility all manhole covers and utility entry points are locked and secured, preventing persons from accessing telecom, electrical, and water infrastructure supporting the building

“Unfortunately our most likely enemies will throw explosives into unguarded cable interconnect rooms or drop cans of petrol into unlocked manholes. End of Cyber War. You might characterize this as the provenance of a 23 year old fundamentalist Skywalker with a cell phone modem and a wild-eyed cousin in Munich figuring out how to blow up the Internet Death Star and stop Predator attacks on his village. Totally asymmetric dude! (From Bob Fonow’s “The Death Star?: Cyber Security vs. Internet security”)”

The commercial operators of data centers and carrier hotels have a tremendous responsibility not only to their owners and shareholders, but also the global telecom community and global economic community. The potential impact, even in the short term to a malicious attack on a meet-me-room at One Wilshire, 60 Hudson, the Westin Building, Telehouse in London, or the NAP of the Americas would be immediate, and extremely disruptive.

Human factors are the threat. Let’s not forget the lessons learned over the past couple years, and keep diligent, have good human situational awareness, and understand the sense of urgency we must apply to ensuring our communications infrastructure is secure.

Let us know your opinions, experiences, and recommendations

John Savageau, Long Beach

Previous articles in this series

• Telecom Risk and Security Part 2 – The Carrier Hotel SuperNode
• Risk and Security in the Telecommunications Industry – Part 1

Employees on the third floor were not happy, especially in the early morning. The coffee kettles, two for regular and one for decaf, in the breakroom were always empty! It’s almost unacceptable for an anxious coffee drinker to wait even five minutes for a freshly brewed cup in the morning. Even worse was that there are others waiting in line in front of you so you might even need to wait for the next kettle to brew. So, people are cranky, unhappy, and even cursing because coffee was not available when people needed it. Time is money, but without coffee in the morning, work won’t be efficient!

It’s totally a supply chain breakdown issue, so a few Six Sigma Black Belts set out on a mission to fix it. The new process is focused on regular coffee because there is much less demand for decaf. Many sigma tools can be applied in this analysis, such as normality analysis of waiting time per person, fishbone analysis, Pareto, regression and correlation analysis between waiting time vs. office hours. A typical six formula can be developed such as Y(coffee waiting time)=Xs of (number of kettles, office hours, number of  coffee addicts, coffee grounds and filter availability, etc. )

According to the rumor, there were quite a lot of hours involved with group brainstorm and heated discussion among Black Belts. A rather complicated new coffee making process, which is like the two-bin system of supply chain management, was produced. The company generously paid for a big desktop mat with nicely printed color coded flow and process. Below is my simplified version to illustrate the idea.

The mat was placed in front of the coffee kettles so it’s very eye catching for everyone serving coffee. The kettles were also relabeled with clear signs of “regular” vs. “decaf”. People were laughing at the change. Many felt it’s a waste of resources in designing the process and printing the mat, but people started to follow the process flow. You know what? The fresh coffee availability was much more improved! The chances of being out of coffee in the early morning were decreased dramatically. Whoever craved coffee in the early morning could now be blissfully caffeinated. Yes, there were still times of process breakdown when a few were not following the process to make a new kettle when the first one was empty, or coffee availability tends to be lower in the afternoon. But overall, the situation is getting better and employees on the third floor were happier. The company was happier too, by investing a little bit of printing cost, the total office productivity improved!

It’s a coffee making process implementation in the office breakroom, but it reflects some supply chain, LEAN and business process improvement disciplines and practices:

1. When a two-bin replenish system is implemented, the re-ordering process, when and how, is the key to maintaining high stock availability.
2. Obvious signs, colors or labels are always useful in LEAN implementation.
3. When a change is implemented, it’s not always welcomed at the beginning. Change management may be necessary in many cases.
4. Any process improvement opportunity should be encouraged. It might be a small improvement but result in a huge increase of customer satisfaction.
5. I think the Human Factor is the most import learning from the office coffee making process. Human factor is the most critical X in Y, no matter if the Y is fresh coffee waiting-time in the office, or products availability for our consumers. A well-designed process can be easily broken because of human manipulation and interruption. The coffee making process relies on many individual coffee drinkers to brew coffee when the first one is empty. Like any processes in the real business world, the expected outcome of a well-designed process relies on many individual employees consistently following instructions. For many manual processes, training and retraining are always required for process enforcement in order to achieve the same standard outcome. Cross-functional communications are always critical to make sure information flows properly and that following the steps can be executed in a timely manner. On the other hand, employees are those who will develop continuous improvement opportunities to streamline processes to achieve better result with a shorter lead-time.

OK, enough learning from this office coffee process. Now it’s time for me to make a coffee for myself at home. Waiting time: 2 minutes.

Es verstößt gegen die Würde des Menschen (GG Artikel 1).
Kinder sind auch Menschen…

Sie dürfen nicht zu Versuchszwecken wie Ware gehandelt werden. Das ist Missbrauch.

Das Kita-Argument des Senders sticht nicht. Es ist Sarkasmus pur. Motto:

„Viele Eltern geben ihre Kleinkinder doch ohnehin in Kitas ab! Da werden sie ja genauso von den Eltern getrennt.“

Ein großer Unterschied ist jedoch dieser: das Motiv!

Eltern bringen ihre Kinder stundenweise in eine Kita, wo ausgebildete Betreuerinnen auf sie warten, um sie regelmäßig zu umsorgen und zu fördern. Eltern bringen ihre Kinder nicht zu Versuchszwecken in Kitas; also nicht deshalb, damit Minderjährige (die selbst Betreuung bräuchten) und Laien einige Tage an ihnen herumexperimentieren!

Auch der angeblich professionelle Betreuerstab von RTL ist kein Argument. RTL will hier Geld verdienen und sonst nichts!

Kinder sind jedoch keine Versuchskaninchen. Auch nicht für Teenager, denen durch das „Feldexperiment“ von RTL zudem ein Menschenbild vermittelt wird, das unsäglich ist. Kinder sind keine Puppen, sondern Menschen.

Quelle: www.fotopresse-nord.de

Die Kinder unseres Planeten haben es nicht leicht. Sie werden auf vielfältigste Weise ausgebeutet. Seelisch und körperlich. Wir zeigen dabei immer gerne auf andere Länder. Kehren wir lieber vor der eigenen Haustüre!

Wenn man RTL das jetzt durchgehen lässt: was werden sie sich als nächstes Format ausdenken? Wie weit lassen wir solche Fernsehmacher noch gehen? Wo ist die Schwelle, an der wir laut STOPP! sagen?

Die Schwelle ist längst erreicht. Es muss endlich Schluss sein mit diesen menschenverachtenden Sendungen, die wie eine Gehirnwäsche wirken. Es ist keineswegs von ungefähr, dass die Empathiefähigkeit der Menschen immer weiter sinkt. Das ist ein Wechselwirkungsprozess, der schleichend und perfide seine Wirkung entfaltet. Nachhaltig!

Es gibt Kinder- und Jugendschutzgesetze in unserem Land. Sorgen wir dafür, dass sie eingehalten werden. Wenn Kinder tatsächlich unser „höchstes Gut“ sind, dann müssen wir sie auch entsprechend behandeln. Alles andere wäre pure Heuchelei.

Zum RTL-Format ist im Grunde nur eines zu sagen: Orwell war ein Optimist!

Quelle / Presse: http://www.lobby-fuer-menschenrechte.de/

Postfach 40 01 10
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Tel: 06122 – 530 329
Fax: 01212 – 666 291159
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In late March 2009, Tim Lawes from The Prop Store of London travelled to Cape Town in South Africa for a walk on acting role in Clint Eastwood’s latest movie “Invictus” (pka “The Human Factor”).  Tim won the part in an eBay charity auction back in December 2008. 

All this following a 30 year wait and doubting if he would ever meet the great Clint Eastwood, Tim’s dream did finally come true being able to meet his longtime hero and witness Clint first hand directing a movie.  What an amazing opportunity Tim had.  Tim also met Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman.

We were lead on to set and generously placed front and centre and we waited while the first assistant director told us all what was expected and what the intention of the scene was. A few dressing props were handed out to lend to the atmosphere and I did my best not to look at the camera, which is much, much harder than you think! At this point the actor within me was released. If there was an Oscar for extras, I can safely say that won’t be winning it, but it was a remarkable experience none the less. The scene was shot from 3 different angles and with just one take each time. Clint really is the most well organized director, he watched each take intently on a handheld wireless monitor and quietly moved position to view the action personally from time to time. He clearly knows when he has what he needs. No need for unnecessary retakes or inserts. Also plainly evident was that the crew clearly love working for him, most have been with him on multiple projects and they are fiercely loyal. Everyone referred to him as “the boss” and it would be impossible to think of a more appropriate title. He commanded complete respect from all present and his soft, sure handed style was a joy to witness.

 

Often it was difficult to know when the cameras were even rolling such is the way Eastwood gets on with filmmaking. No yells of action or cut, just a very quiet “lets try one” and the crew would swing into action. I simply have too limited a vocabulary to adequately describe the thrill of watching my lifetime hero at work, let alone begin to account for the feelings I had of participating directly. Whether my wife and I make the final cut or not, I can say with pride that my wife and I have been directed by Hollywood legend Clint Eastwood.

Tim & his wife with Clint Eastwood

Tim & his wife with Matt Damon

Clint signed this call sheet for Tim You may like to compare Tim’s autograph that was obtained in April 2009 to that of Rays as this shows how much an authentic autograph can fluctuate, it also illustrates the complexity in authenticating Clint Eastwood autographs

I think it can be said that without doubt this will certainly be one of Tim’s most cherished experiences of his life.  Well done Tim!!

Read more about Tim’s exciting trip to South Africa here

For more information check out the Invictus IMDB page at:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1057500/

In my last post I’ve stated that the login/password is not secure.

Maybe the problem resides not in the ‘technology’ but as many times on the human factor.

In fact, the main problem is not the login/password procedure, but the way you use it.

So,  in order to study my customers passwords, I tried to create several simple rules to determine if the password used by them are easily crackable or not.

I have done this study using data from an hospital, and having a 400 user accounts.

Let me remind that although our software has several rules implemented for password management, we were asked to turn them down. This rules include:

- time validity

- minimum chars used

- time period for using the same password

- among others.

So, the rules I’ve come up with, are 10 very simple and common sense rules:

Rule 1: Verify if the users ever changed the password (12% didn’t, meaning that they still use the original random password assigned to them)

Rule 2: Verify that password is the same than login (4% use password=login)

Rule 3: Verify if the password is the Institution name (1%)

Rule 4: Verify that the password is the Application name (4%)

Rule 5: Verify if the password is the official employee number (14% use their official number, that is published in every institution document)

Rule 6: Verify if the password is between 1900 and 2009 (25% a year like password)

Rule 7: Verify that password is a 4 digit number, not like Rule 5 (5%)

Rule 8: Verify that password is the user first name (2%)

Rule 9: Verify that password is the user last name (1% use last name, although I haven’t tried maid name)

Rule 10: Verify if the password is a portuguese name (3% use Portuguese names, which I suppose to be children names, or wife/husband names)

This simple 10 rules, allowed me to crack 71% of a 400 user accounts password, meaning 284 user accounts.

I suppose that if I apply this rules to the same users on different applications, I would have got similar results, because the crackable passwords were personal data.

“Do you really think your health data is safe?”

Let´s ban login/password NOW!

I’ve been working in hospital labs for several years, and have followed the IT evolution in this sector. In the beginning, the lab was an isle, and the information was secure for the physical barriers. The network was restricted to the laboratory, and the access to the software wasn’t password protected.

Then, the hospitals began to connect the several ‘islands’, and implementing a centralized infrastructure.

It was the beginning of domains, and the first contact of the user with logins and passwords.

Then, rapiddly there was a proliferation of software, and each one had different logins and passwords. There was administrative software, clinical, image, lab, infection control, then appeared the intranets and portals, and when the user noticed he had more logins and passwords than he could possibly manage and memorize.

One of the first reaction from users was to unify passwords. But then, some of them had time limit, and others did not, and it was an Herculean task to manage all this info.

Some hospitals tried to implement Single Sign On, others tried to ease access through digital id cards. But the most common access control still is Login/Password.

And why should login/password be banned?

Because it is not secure!

To prove this I have made some tests attempting to figure out what the user password was in several databases installed in different hospitals.

The results leave no doubt that this method is not secure. More than 70% of the passwords were broken in the first 10 rules.

On the next post, I’ll describe the tests I made and the results I got.

Seriously.  Dude.  Please come out of retirement and rock out for us one more time.  I honestly don’t really care if you’re doing metal or some rock stuff, just grant us the privilege to hear that voice again.  Some of your counterparts did it like John Arch and Michael Kiske and their stuff sounds pretty good.  I know you still have the pipes.

I remember when I first heard Heretic’s Breaking Point and thinking, “Damn, this dude’s got a unqiue voice.”  I really liked that album too.  When I read that he had joined Metal Church to replace David Wayne (RIP), I was looking very forward to it even though I was a huge Wayne fan.

So Blessing in Disguise comes out and me and all of my metal friends were toally into it.  They had a video on Headbangers Ball regularly (Badlands) and went on tour.  When they rolled through my area of Virginia they did an in-store autograph signing at Tracks Records at Wards Corner.  So Big Bill, Kirshon and I pile into Kirshon’s truck (Alice) and head out there to meet the guys.  They were super cool.  Small crowd to meet them but it worked out to our advantage.  Craig Wells and Mike Howe asked us to hang out after the signing to share some pizza with them.  How cool?!  So after the signing was completed, the band was allowed to get 2 CDs of their choice and then headed back upstairs for the pizza.  Kirk Arrington was sick as a dog, looking like death warmed over.  The other guys seemed healthy enough.  They were great fun that afternoon and it was an experience I’ll never forget for sure.

That night we headed over the The Boathouse in Norfolk to see the show.  It was Metal Church/Meliah Rage.  Both bands kicked ass.  We hung out with them again after the show outside of the tour bus.  I have a slew of photos somewhere that I need to get scanned in.

I ws looking forward to the Human Factor album but was greatly disappointed when it came out.  Honestly I cannot tell you the name of any song besides Date With Poverty and I really don’t even remember how it sounds.  I should revisit that one, eh?  When I saw Hanging In The Balance came out, I was pretty much disinterested and didn’t bother picking it up until years after its initial release.  I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by it.  Good production and the songwriting was good.  I think the production on Human Factor is what turned me off.  It seemed too muddy for me. 

Shortly after the Balance tour, Mike was gone.  What a pisser that new was.  I remember reading an interview with him within the last 8 or 9 years and he said he’s hanging out in Kentucky or Tennessee doing carpentry work.  Wait, isn’t that what John Arch is doing too?

So please, Mr. Howe…please come out of retirement and give us one more.

According to an Healthcare IT News article, a recent survey by the American College of Physician Executives, polled 1,000 ACPE members and provides some interesting findings:

- Almost 2/3 of respondents said they use electronic medical records.

- About 44 percent said their organization uses computerized order entry

Though the increase in technology has risen since the last  survey, the new survey revealed that physicians’ attitudes have not improved.

The article transcribes some doctors opinions:

“One physician said adopting electronic medical records has been “the worst aspect of my 25 years in medicine. It has ruined doctor productivity, produced lower quality care and encouraged notes that are false to the point of fraud.”

Respondents complained the systems are still too clunky, too hard to use and too poorly developed.

One respondent likened implementing a computer system to ordering a sleek Corvette and being delivered a box filled with Corvette parts.”

Although this survey was made in the States, I have a feeling that if this survey was made in Portugal, both results and opinions would have been the same (or similar).

By the way, wouldn’t it be interesting to survey IT staff about what they think of medical users?

Do you think that results would be positive?

For start, I think that quite often,  IT Vendors and Medical staff are fighting each other, rather than working together.

It’s frequent to see that medical staff and IT staff look like those cousins that don’t go along with each other, and when they seat for a meeting, it usually ends up discussing who stole the girlfriend to the other one, or who broke the waterpistol in 1985 summer holiday.

This is why should exist the role of an IT Healthcare Specialist. The mediation is needed.

This is no time to fingerpointing! Forget your old girlfriend, and your old toys.

We are talking about providing a good service to OUR patients. It is time to work together.

As I always say: ” It’s all about managing conflicts, envys, threats and fears. “

Everyone resists to change.  Changing is always a traumatic experience. The adaptation to a new reality, leaving the old habits and routines, and having new ones.

Changing your IS is as traumatic as changing your house.

In your new house, you feel lost.

You don’t know which side of the bed you’re supposed to be, should you be on the left side, or near the door?

You don’t know where you have stored your shoes.

Even the new furniture seems to be against you, you always try to open the doors to the wrong side.

And don’t mention your new neighbours, who the hell are these new guys?

Your new house has all these new gadgets, but suddenly, you start to miss your old crappy stuff, that boiler that always forced you to have an Hot/Cold shower, and even the boring Mrs. Livenextdoor, now seems a pretty old lady.

Well, your new IS is your new house.

Surelly, that on the first days, everybody claims and miss that old system. But it’s time to move on.

My experience is commanding an IS system change, tells me that success is not only based on the features of your software.

In fact, the human factors will prevail to determine that you’ll have a successfull migration.

It’s all about managing expectations, fears, envys and conflicts.

If you’re successfull with the human factor (and if your software does what it is supposed to do) you’ll have gone through a traumatic experience and survived with no damage!!!

My final advice is: ‘Leave that old, smelly, crappy sofa in your old house‘.

Nachdem ich die Animationen fertig hatte (Beispiele kommen noch nach der Crunchtime) habe ich noch die Aufgabe übernommen Interfaces und Menues zu erstellen, da der kollege der eigentlich eingeteilt war zuviele Ausfälle hatte und man ihm keinen Task mehr zuteilen konnte. Mein Zeitrahmen ist sehr knapp, aber ich bin zuversichtlich!

Hier ein paar Sachen:

Feldauswahl (Blau sind die Felder die man mit der Aktion noch erreichen kann, rot die nicht erreichbaren Felder.)

Characterauswahlringe (erscheinen um den aktiven Character auf dem Boden)

Suchraster (Basisgrafik für den Shadereffekt)

Und dann noch das Ingame PDA….so zu sagen das Ingamemenue

On Feb. 5, the Star Air B767-200 with registration OY-SRK in the picture below, flying for Lufthansa Cargo from Rome – Fiumicino to Athens performed an emergency landing shortly after take off due to a cockpit window problem. According to some rumors, the crew had forgotten to lock a cockpit window (even if there is a specific check in the after start checklist) and did not manage to close it after departure. Most probably, the window was not open but closed unlocked and the pilots did not realize the forgotten checklist step, until they were climbing. This kind of events reaffirms how much checklists are important and must be performed with concentration rather than “routinely”. This time the error didn’t cause a disaster, but think to what could happened when more important checks were skipped (read about Spanair 5022 crash here: http://cencio4.wordpress.com/tag/jk5022/).

Analysing the recent US1549 ditching in the Hudson River (http://cencio4.wordpress.com/tag/awe1549/), I explained that the success in the difficult splash down was the result of a perfect maneuver and luck. Even if I still believe that luck is important to increase survivability in case of emergency, when talking about aviation safety, I believe that it sometimes doesn’t come alone and it is strictly tied to the crew’s airmanship. Capt. Sullenberger perfomed a difficult maneuver he had never attempted before. He was lucky, as the rest of the crew and the passengers were, but the “happy ending” could have been tragic and luck would most probably be enough if “Sully” had not made the right decisions and had not followed the correct procedure. Pilot’s experience, skill and cold blood, are paramount to increase the possibilities of achieving a succesfull crash landing. In order to emphasise this point I will remind you another crash landing, the one of the Tuninter 1153. On Aug 6, 2005, TUI 1153 flight, an ATR-72-200 with registration TS-LBB, enroute from Bari-Palese airport, Italy, to Djerba-Zarzis Airport in Djerba, Tunisia, ran out of fuel and ditched in the Tyrrenhian sea 26 chilometers to the North East of Palermo, Sicily. 16 POB (2 crew members and 14 passengers) died in the accident while 23 survived the crash. The root cause of the crash was an ATR-42 fuel gauge erroneously installed on the ATR-72. Both gauges have the same form factor but they are different as the Fuel Quantity is calculated by processing the signals coming from capacitance probes in the tanks with a specific algortithm that differs from aircraft to aircraft, depending on the shape and size of the tanks. When TUI 1153 departed from Bari, the FQI indicated 2.700 kilograms, while the actual amount of fuel was only 570 kgs. At 15.17′47″LT, 4 minutes before the first engine failed, the crew did not notice the low pressure indication. At 23.000 feet, at 15.21, the aircraft lost the first engine, to be followed by the second at 15.23. The pilot declared an emergency at 15.24 informing Rome Radar that they were diverting to Palermo Punta Raisi airport. The aircraft did not make to Palermo, glided for 14 minutes before ditching at around 15.40. Six Tuninter employee at the time of the disaster were found guilty by the court of Palermo. Among them, Captain and Fist Officer who survived the crash (the only 2 crew member to escape the aircraft of the 4 on board).
Even if the problem was with the gauge, according to the investigation the pilot made a series of mistakes that for sure contributed to the crash and did not help to solve the emergency:

before experiencing the emergency:
- he did not check that the installed FQI was correct (both him and the FO had requested a replacement the day before for a failure, replacement that was performed in Tunis) and working properly

in-flight:
- he ignored the acoustic warning 4 minutes before the first engine quit
- after losing the first and later both engines he started a steep descend instead of gliding smoothly
- there was too much confusion in the cockpit and 10 minutes after the aircraft had lost both engines, the crew had not started the appropriate check list yet
- ditching was not performed as foreseen: the aircraft has an angle of attack comprised between -0,1° and 0,8 even if AOA, according to the manual, had to be of 9°. The Vertical Speed is too high: 13 feet per second instead of the foreseen 5 fps. The approach to the surface of the water was performed with tail wind and not parallel to the waves. In particular, the uncorrect aircraft attitude was the root cause of the violent impact with the water and the subsequent quick deceleration and disintegration of the airframe.

Nobody can say if a ditching performed “as prescribed” would have changed the destiny of TUI 1153. For sure, despite the gauge mistakenly installed on the aircraft, the investigation focused to a large amount of cockpit crew’s errors, which, most probably, cost some human lives. In your opinion, did this ditching fail because of bad luck? In my opinion, it was not a matter of luck (only). Most probably the particular high-wing of the ATR72 (the same of the ATR42) did not help since the floating line was above the cabin (as the following picture of an Alitalia ATR42 shows)

but the captain had some luck (he was flying at high altitude, he could point the ATR72 towards some boats, he had plenty of time to perform the check list and appropriate procedures, he ditched in the warm water of the Tyrrhenian Sea in August) and he simply wasted it.

The following pictures were taken by the Italian Coast Guard a few minutes after the crash landing. According to the autopsies the majority of the dead passenger didn’t survive the crash, but some drowned).

My day is boring.  I have nothing exciting to tell you.

Tunes:
Human Factor – Sensation (track is in player)

Today’s Oldie:
Roni Size – Snapshot - Full Cycle 1999
Classic. 

Dj Gozu – Mixed Feelings Jan ‘09

Zyon Base & Sol ID – World of Emptiness
Alix Perez, Icicle & Switch – This is How
Spectrasoul – Falling Down
Alix Perez – Stray
Calibre – Alone In A Crowd
Atlantic Connection – Republic
Zyon Base – City of Red Night
Donny Dubson – Lines to Draw
Mutt & Nemesis Visionary – Lady Love
Redeyes – Conart
Donny DUbson & Stunna – Forever
Logistics – Daylight Creeps In