Back around 2008, I was tasked with kicking-off an IT transformation project in Brisbane that ended up being a multi-month gig. While I have been fortunate to have done some international work, Brisbane for nearly a year became my second home from 2008 to 2010.

My first exposure to this wonderful city was coming in on a late-night flight from San Francisco (which started in Chicago) and based on the recommendation of one of the local staff, I was booked into the Treasury Casino Hotel, on the top floor, with a patio overlooking the Treasury Casino. Even though it was about 3 am and a very long flight, the view of the commons and the Casino just had to be taken in:

At this point I had graduated to my 3rd digital camera, a Canon Powershot A640. I had not had it long yet, but was already enamored with how far the technology had progressed. Even so, getting this shot meant a very long exposure and would have been difficult except for the fact that absolutely everything was still in the pre-dawn air.

It was silent and magical and unforgettable; staying that way for nearly an hour until the morning deliveries began.

With that, this image has been updated just a bit to remove the noise that was common with early digital cameras as well as provide a very mild sharpening, using software (Topaz Photo AI, Radiant Photo 2) that simply did not exist back when this image was taken 17 years ago.

I loved my time in Brisbane and was fortunate enough to have spent nearly 2 years in-and-out (and a full summer).

March 13th, 2008 -{Tech in the comments}

#Photography #UrbanPhotography #Nightphotography #SilentSunday #MomentOfZen #Australia #Brisbane

One of the things that rarely gets brought up is the obsolescence of old technology formats and how it will begin to block us from perfectly preserved and intact data simply because a device to "read" the data no longer exists.

Take the humble floppy drive for example. Most modern PCs and many operating systems will not recognize a 5.25 inch floppy, and quite a few don't recognize a 3.5 inch one either. Few people have the need, or don't care of course. But the fact is that if you were to run across a stack of 5.25" floppies that had an unknown work by (insert your favorite artist here), being able to pull a copy would not be a simple job.

This is beginning to happen to Optical Disks as well.

I was able to pick up a new-old-stock set of M*A*S*H DVD's that were directly produced by 20th Century Fox this week. They were delivered today in their unopened original shipping box, with the retail disk box still shrink-wrapped and all the DVDs still tightly mounted inside and perfect (zero scratches or evidence of DVD rot) Amazingly there is no Blu-Ray collection of this epic series and since Fox studios is no more (as anyone who saw Deadpool 3 might have ascertained), there many never be a new set of these produced.

Not a single one of these disks could be read error-free on any of the 3 Blu-Ray drives that I have active in my home. Indeed several of the disks weren't readable at all.
The only drive that will read them is a 10(ish) year old Pioneer Blu-Ray drive. Which I keep hanging on to because... this is not the first time this has happened before.
To repeat, these disks are fine. Indeed they are pretty much perfect. But how DVDs were manufactured 15 years ago was very much different than how they are made today, and every thing from the size/spacing of the data pits on the disk to the optimization for certain wavelength lasers has changed over the years.

It's been incremental to be sure, so the changes over say, a decade, aren't enough to piss off a modern optical drive. But more often I'm running across media from 15+ years ago that newer drives choke on. And some of these creative works are no longer available in their original form. M*A*S*H for example had an original run-time of about 26 minutes, and usually had just 3 minutes of commercials when airing on CBS. Today when an episode streams it is rarely longer than 19 minutes (in order to get 10 minutes of ads in), so most of the time you are seeing a M*A*S*H episode that has had 20% (or more) of it cut to plug into a 30 minute space. For a show of its kind, those lost scenes can make a real difference.

I'll be taking steps to make sure that I can read these DVDs again in the future, but for a lot of folks, this isn't doable.

And of course for stuff that is even less well-known, it may never get brought to a new format at all.

Makes me a bit sad... 😢

Pouring one out for EL-ISAC today. I actually knew about this one a couple of weeks back, but apparently the "official statement" that they are history was announced yesterday.

Trump administration halts funding for two cybersecurity efforts, including one for elections: apnews.com/article/election-se…

This one is somewhat personal as I had the honor of working with a number of the folks at the Elections Information Sharing and Analysis Center during my time at the Illinois State Board of Elections. That group, along with the elections staff at CISA (who are also now gone), were a critical component in ensuring the cybersecurity of elections agencies and elections systems in the U.S. I don't think it is possible to downplay the impact that shutting them down will have on elections integrity.

Even more worrisome is that it now also appears that MS-ISAC, which is the larger and more general Information Sharing and Analysis Center, is also on the chopping block. This one has been focused on strengthening the cybersecurity efforts of State and Local Government Agencies, including many School Districts. So, Transportation Agencies, such as the one I lead IT and Cybersecurity operations for, get daily intelligence from MS-ISAC regarding threats and exploits that are actively being conducted against our country. Crippling both ISACs (or in the case of elections, eliminating it entirely) will have a lasting impact on small government’s and local infrastructure’s ability to defend themselves for years to come.

Clearly we as a country have made a decision to roll-out the welcome mat to those that would hurt our Information Systems and Infrastructure. Why that is... is obviously a much larger conversation than I wish to have here today.

Instead, I simply want to Thank all of the folks at EL-ISAC who believed in the importance of maintaining the integrity of a Democratic Elections System so much that they were right there with all of us Elections Agencies at all hours of the day and night making it happen. For many of them it wasn’t a job, it was a calling. And it showed in everything you did.

You all deserved better.

#Cybersecurity #ElectionsSecurity #Elections #CISA #ISAC

Amidst the firehose of daily insanity coming out of the U.S. these days, this perhaps depresses me the most.

One of the real joys as I have been spending the 2nd half of my Career in Public Service has been hanging with the Gen Y and Gen Z folks (and increasingly Gen A) who were dedicated to making genuine differences in the society and world that they live in. More so than my generation (I’ve always seen myself as an early X), this was a group that seemed to better understand that $$$ isn’t everything, that the Life part of the Work/Life equation was important, and well… That the Work part was too.

Every day that I get to be around them and see their passion for real transformation in Public Service has been an inspiration and a joy. Periodically I have alluded to the fact that I am not exactly a youngster anymore (although in my head, I'm 25) and the reality is I am now at an age where it would not be inconceivable to be thinking about retirement. What has been keeping me in the “game” has been the feeling that my experiences are still of benefit to the greater good, combined with the relentless drive and passion that these younger technologists keeping bringing to the table when we talk about ways to make things better. It's the best high there is to be had.

Most of them probably have no idea that I get more out of working with them than they can possibly be getting from me. And until recently I fervently believed that they were on the cusp of great things.

And suddenly, we are telling most of them that none of that matters…

I truly hope they weather the storm and that they are there to pick up the pieces and rebuild the destruction that is happening in our Country and our World. But for the first time I wonder if I will live to see it:

apnews.com/article/trump-musk-…

1996...

This story has been told in our personal circle many times, so for close friends and family, please, TL:DR...

Evelia was actually the one who asked me out.

3 times.

We were both Public Transit Drivers for the IU Campus Bus Service. I was single, on strike 2 at pursuing a degree, very shy (seriously, not the adorable and outgoing person I am today), and absolutely uninterested in dating in any way whatsoever.

Evelia was a single parent, a student (12 credit hours) and a full-time IU Bus Driver. She was also obnoxiously extroverted.

For reasons that are still to this day unclear to me, she started hitting on me almost immediately.

I said no.

I said no again.

The third time she caught me at the IU Bus Garage between shifts, pulled me aside, and said something to the effect of. "Look, it doesn't have to be a date or anything. Between work, school, and the kids, I never get a chance to just go see a movie and have a hamburger with another adult. You're kind of cute and it doesn't seem like you have any friends, so I simply thought it might be nice to hang together sometime. No pressure."

We've now been together for 37(ish) years...

{Photo originally taken by Chris Rund}

The upside-down flag — traditionally a symbol of distress or a national threat — was strung near the falls and clearly visible.

“We’re bringing attention to what’s happening to the parks, which are every American’s properties,” Gavin Carpenter, a maintenance mechanic with Yosemite and disabled military veteran who supplied the flag and helped hang it Saturday, told the Chronicle. “It’s super important we take care of them, and we’re losing people here, and it’s not sustainable if we want to keep the parks open.”

Eleven of Yosemite’s full-time staff members, including the park’s sole locksmith, a biologist, an HVAC specialist and others, received a termination email on Feb. 14 — as did thousands of federal lands workers across the country, some of whom have spoken out about the pain and dejection they feel being summarily dismissed from jobs they love. Yosemite staffers typically live in employer-provided housing in the park, so a termination can carry the added burden for many of losing their residence.

msn.com/en-us/travel/parks/ar-…

Anyone want to guess which two got fired yesterday? It shouldn't be hard.

I remember this statement being shared across social networking in the days before the election:

Citizens should consider a candidate’s character when voting, but they should also remember that a candidate’s policy reflects their character. Andrew T. Walker, Ethics and public Theology Professor at Southern Seminary, recently wrote about the importance of policy in World. Policy-the type of that has real-world implications on others – may be a more accurate barometer of one’s deepest convictions that have a formative or deformative effect on character than even the words that come out of one’s mouth, “he writes, In other words, “Policy is character, too.”

Understand that I don't endorse that statement, indeed it reflects one of the worst aspect of Human Nature, which is "the ends justify the means", and an attitude that evil is OK, as long as it accomplishes the things we want. Historically nothing good as ever come from that pact with the Devil. Nothing good is coming this time either.

But I continue to be surprised at all the shocked reactions as we citizens of the U.S. watch the remake of our country from one of diversity and inclusion to one which is a White, Christian Nationalist, Patriarchic Fascist government. For the folks that did not see this coming, all I can say is "Really?"

So again, just a reminder that a plurality of Americans voted for this and all the signs that is was coming were there.

This was a choice.