Newsletter Volume 29 Issue 4, Apr 2017
From The Editor
Did political jokes about Donald Trump help to get him elected? From the Simpsons Bart to the Future in 2000 to the 2015/16 “South Park” episodes where Mr. Garrison is elected on a grossly anti-immigrant platform, there is growing consensus that the jokes helped Trump. Now the question is What can we learn from this? See below, The Trump Hollowgram.
The article in our January 2017 issue, DDoS Gang Wars – The Millennial Mobsters, gave a first-hand account of the growing DDoS protection racket. Now a March 23, 2017 Kaspersky Lab Securelist article gives details of the costs and the profits, e.g.” It should be noted that DDoS attacks and, in particular, ransomware DDoS have already turned into a high-margin business: the profitability of one attack can exceed 95%.” See below, The cost of launching a DDoS attack
“Will a robot take away my job? Many people ask that question, yet policymakers don’t have the kind of information they need to answer it intelligently.”
The above quote is from an April 13, 2017 ScienceDaily article based on Materials provided by Carnegie Mellon University. The article describes a new study from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM), which shows that for the US workforce “Information technology, artificial intelligence and robotics will affect almost all occupations”. See below, Policymakers ‘flying blind’ into the future of work. See also Events below for a re-run of the 6th April Creating New Jobs in ICT joint event, which was overbooked.
“What if the government had instead used its free National Map data visualisation tool to show the wider community how this map could be used for day-to-day business, work, and school?”
This quote is from an 18.04.2017 article in The Mandarin, which suggests that “Through driving smarter city planning by understanding exactly when, where and how public transport is used, to better allocating education funds by forecasting student population growth, data visualisation is an invaluable planning tool in its own right. But it is even more powerful in its ability to rally the community around new public policies.”
See below, Data visualisation can be the picture worth a thousand slogans.
Current Issue
Articles in the current Issue cover:
The Trump Hollowgram
“what killed me last year were the jokes, because I love jokes—dirty jokes, bad jokes, rude jokes, jokes that cut through bullshit and explode pomposity…. But by 2016 the wheel had spun hard the other way: now it was the neo-fascist strongman who held the microphone and an army of anonymous dirty-joke dispensers who helped put him in office.”
The cost of launching a DDoS attack
“ the actual cost of an attack using a botnet of 1000 workstations can amount to $7 per hour. The asking prices for the services we managed to find were, on average, $25 per hour, meaning the cybercriminals organizing DDoS attack are making a profit of about $18 for every hour of an attack. The cost of a five-minute attack on a large online store is about $5.”
Policymakers ‘flying blind’ into the future of work
“ Government agencies need to collect different kinds of labor data to accurately assess and predict how computer and robotic technologies will affect the workplace.”
Data visualisation can be the picture worth a thousand slogans.
“With the growing imperative for transparency in government, data visualisation is emerging as the holy grail for today’s politicians and policy makers.”
QESP Blog
When a Kentucky doctor was dragged off a United Airlines flight, his home town paper Louisville Courier-Journal had the headline: “Passenger removed from United flight has troubled past.” It was a cliche that deserved to become its own meme. Days later, when a scorpion was found on a different United flight, Twitter asked about its “troubled past” and on Good Friday, pictures of Jesus circulated commenting on his “troubled past”. Various news outlets have responded with their best memes but the most effective and successful individual effort dates back to 2009, see Thanks for the memery.
Events
The 6th April Creating New Jobs in ICT joint event was so popular that it was fully booked. For the benefit of those who missed out, the event will be run again at the ACS Auditorium on Wed 17 May. Registration and pre-event drinks & nibbles will be from 6:00 to 6:30 and the event will run from 6:30 to 7:30. You can register for the event here. Enter the promo code ACSQ2 to attend for $20.
Quotes
Quote of the Day
AT&T to wed T-Mobile. Following the ceremony there will be no reception. – Richard Lerner
Quote from Yesteryear
“I’m writing a book. I’ve got the page numbers done.” ? Steven Wright
Ted Smillie
QESP Chair