The dangers of technological predictions
Ray Kurzweil is a very well-known techno-futurist whose main focus has been the coming of artificial sentience. His 1999 book, The Age of Spiritual Machines, contains a series of chapters prediction computer technology in successive decades (2009, 2019, etc.). Well, we’re now entering 2009, and it’s worth looking at his 2009 predictions (hat tip to […]
Systems doomed to fail: ULTra mass transit
Over at Futurismic (one of my daily science blog reads) is this post about the ULTra light transit system. The system is quite clever and takes a demand-based (vs. a schedule-based) approach to transit. But as you watch the accompanying video, ask yourself: why will the ULTra system likely never grow beyond small, custom installations […]
Five books every IT manager should read…right now
My latest Baseline column is up, and it talks about why you should read these five books now, if you haven’t already. And if you have read them, you should probably re-read them. ..bruce..
Is IT work true engineering or just plumbing?
And I mean no disrespect to plumbers for that comment. Many states require plumbers to be licensed, unlike software engineers. I was reading the comment thread to this Slashdot post on the declining percentage of women studying computer science. All the explanations you would expect are offered, with a fair amount of point and counterpoint. […]
Hanging on to your IT staff
I’ve written previously about the “Dead Sea effect“, in which your best IT engineers and managers leave over time, leaving behind an IT staff that is slowly becoming less competent and effective. Obviously, to counteract the Dead Sea effect, you want to hold onto your best IT people. My two latest Baseline columns talk about […]