Personal Data Loss: Who’s to Blame?

There is an old saying, “when the only tool you have is a hammer, all the world looks like a nail.” So, in the common wisdom, we lose control of our data because evil hackers steal it, and this is certainly true to a point. Certainly if they can get it, they will [...]

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Computer Pioneer John Backus Gets Reset for the Last Time

I note sadly and with reverence that John Backus, one of the greatest of the pioneers of the computer technology world, has passed away at the age of 82. He was the manager of the IBM project team that invented the FORTRAN programming language in the early 1950s.
For the non-technological of you, let me [...]

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Still Feeding Off the Corpse of New Orleans

In spite of the pious wailing at all levels of government about “rebuilding this glorious city,” a prostrate New Orleans seems to be able to draw only vultures to the party. The latest to stick their snout in the trough of the reconstruction spoils is a politically well-connected pump company, Moving Water Industries, of [...]

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Cronyism, Penny-Pinching, and the Shafting of our Soldiers

The current and pending scandals on the healthcare of our wounded soldiers and veterans wouldn’t be half so outrageous if they didn’t happen on the watch of an administration that has constantly engaged in public breast-beating about “supporting our soldiers” and suggested that any questioning of the administration’s conduct or policies in any regard is [...]

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