Showing posts with label Self-Service. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Self-Service. Show all posts

April 10, 2013

Growing And Getting Old Together

The Wall Street Journal had a good book review on "The End of Sex" by Donna Freitas. 

The book is about the casual hook-up culture, where a sexual interaction is brief--like a single night--purely physical, and "no strings" attached--"you just do it, you're done, and you can forget about it."


Essentially it is a purely hedonistic, selfish act, for one's own pleasure--where the other person (if you even know their name) doesn't count. 


The review recounts studies that show that the percentage of undergraduates that have participated in hookups is as high as 65 to 75%!


People are searching a quick fix "without the constraints and sacrifices" that real committed relationships require. 


According to the review, hookups are not liberating and empowering, but denigrating and dehumanizing--where the other person is just a thing to use for self-pleasure.


It can certainly be understandable that college-aged students are driven to exploration and experimentation, and those unattached can be frustrated and alone and are looking for love. 


Whether hookup are the right way to find this--is an individual choice--however from my Jewish upbringing, I was raised to appreciate those who maintain modesty before marriage, because that way the bond of marriage is stronger for it. 


The book review seems to imply that hooking up for sex is perhaps just steps away from "sexual assault"--taking sex through violence --one way or another.  In a sense, the animal nature takes over and the spiritual element and higher connection is absent. Whether the means is consensual or forced, self-satisfaction is the end. 


While sex is a genuine human need, waking up to a stranger--no matter how attractive--is not a great substitute for sharing life's joys (and sorrows) with your true other half, because meaning means more than just the self and the moment. 


On one hand, if people can't find emotional love, then they can be left with the physical aspect of sex alone. On the other hand, even some in relationships may not be in the "right" relationships, and may be left searching for more. And still others may use sex to express their power over others--taking what they want, when they want, and how they want. 


At the most elementary level, people are motivated to pure self-satisfaction, yet as they rise up to higher orders of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, they are driven further to self-actualization


Seeing grandparents, parents and others grow a bond of giving and fidelity that is built up over decades is a truly beautiful thing--where love can deepen over time, rather than be forgotten the next morning. 


Meeting other people, dating, and developing relationships are markers on the road for those who are fortunate enough to find their true life partners--those with whom they can grow and get old together with. ;-)


(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

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November 15, 2009

Cloud Computing, The Next Evolution

On November 4-5 2009, I attended a good CSC Leading Edge Forum on Cloud Computing.

The kickoff by W. Brain Arthur was a highlight for me (he is the author of The Nature of Technology). He provided an excellent conceptualization of cloud and it’s place in overall technology advancement and body of world innovation. Essentially, he sees cloud in the 2000’s as the next evolution from the Internet in the 1990s. As such, the cloud is computational power in the “virtual world,” providing a host of benefits including easy access, connectivity, and cost efficiency. He sees the cloud coming out of the initial frenzy and into a industry sort-out that will result in a stable build out.

Another great speaker was David Moschelle from CSC who talked about the myriad benefits of moving to cloud such as scalability, self-service, pay as you go, agility, and ability to assemble and disassemble needed components virtually on the fly. With the cloud, we no longer have to own the computing means of production.

Of course, we also talked about the challenges, particularly security. Another speaker also spoke about the latency issues on the WAN with cloud, which currently limits some usability for transactional processing.

Over the course of the forum numerous examples of success were given including Bechtel achieving a 90% cost advantage by moving storage to the cloud. Others, such as Amazon were able to put up new web sites in 3 weeks versus 4-6 months previously. Also, Educational Testing Service as another example is using cloud bursting, since they tend to run data center at known cyclical peaks.

Others connected cloud with social computing: “the future of business is collaboration, the future of collaboration is in the cloud.”

In terms of the major types of cloud, I thought the relationship between responsibility and control was interesting. For example:

  • Software as a Service -- more “freedom” from responsibility for service, but less freedom to change service (i.e. less control)
  • Platform as a Service – (Hybrid)
  • Infrastructure as a Service – less freedom from responsibility for actual end-user services, more freedom to change service provision (i.e. more control)

In all cases, the examples demonstrated that organizations do not have a lot of leeway with SLAs with cloud providers. It’s pretty much a take it or leave it proposition. With liability to the vendor for an outage being limited to basically the cost of the service, not the cost of lost business or organizational downtime. However, it was noted that these mega-vendors providing cloud services probably have a better availability and security than it’s customers could have on their own. In other words, an outage or security breach will either way cost, and where is there a greater chance of this happening?

Sort of a good summary was this: “Leading companies are moving development/test and disaster recovery to the cloud,” but then this will reverse and companies will actually move their production in the cloud and provide mainly a back up and recovery capability in house. This is similar to how we handle energy now, were we get our electricity from the utilities, but have a back-up generator should the lights go dark.


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