Corporate Paranoia by Craig Walker

My Other Life

2004-11-07T21:17:00.000-06:00

This weekend was spent in pursuit of another of my passions; Adventure Racing. My three teammates and I competed in the Fall Classic race in Delafield, WI. We placed third with a time of 4 hours and 45 minutes. Our best finish in three years of competition. Also the shortest race we have ever done... Coincidence?

John, Jeff, and Lisa

Kristin (support team), Jeff, and John

Enterprise Architect Summit Day 1

2004-06-07T12:41:00.000-05:00

Architects Panel

The first session of the day was sort of a level set for what enterprise architecture is and what is the role of the enterprise architect. My take away from this session is that there is not one clear definition of either and varies by organization. We are moving to a definition but we are still in the infancy of this discipline. But not really. Aren't these the activities that we have been performing (or should have been) in software engineering from the beginning? We have moved from a homogenous single computing platform where EA was not as important as application design and construction. To a more distributed throw-away computing environment (the dot-com era) where EA was not critical. To where we are today; trying to build enduring high-value software. Architecting these solutions has now become a critical value added activity of the EA.

Pat Helland gave a fascinating comparison between the evolution of IT and the evolution of cities. A refernce can be found here. This type of comparison has tremendous value in keeping us from reinventing the wheel. It is macro-pattern matching pursuit. You look for systems to which you can draw close comparisons, and determine how common problems are solved. The trick is finding an appropriate macro-pattern that is more advanced than the problem you are trying to solve and one that maps well to the problem space.

Natural Selection and Human Nature

2004-05-25T16:20:00.000-05:00

Today while I was subconsciously selecting the same shower stall I pick every day (we have three showers at work), I was struck by how our basic human tendency to repeat patterns has enabled natural selection to work. An organism that makes truly random decisions (not about which shower to use) would confound the laws of natural selection (and probably not have much of a life-expectancy anyway). Natural selection relies on organisms, when faced with a choice (under no extraneous constraints), making the same (statistically) decision.

Human Markup Language

2004-05-05T06:43:00.000-05:00

"It is also our purpose to build vocabularies for use in less formal, but well recognized social contexts that can be legally ratified or notarized or can simply allow parties to air their positions with an improved and improving likelihood of being accurately understood in such contexts as conflicts between neighbors which do not normally result in formal legal suits, but which can, over time, result in escalating those conflicts out of proportion to their root causes such as conflicts over loud noises late at night, or timely removal of trash. This type of vocabulary is also aimed at facilitating the ability to establish relationships between and amongst individuals, communities and organizations with a vested interest in mitigating conflict outside of more formal legal proceedings."

I applaud the efforts of the HML committee. On many occasions I have been misunderstood or misrepresented in electronic communications. Now I can accurately denote my mood as well as my intentions.

“Bill,

Regarding our meeting this morning; I think you had a < sarcasm > really great idea </sarcasm > and I would like to thank you for < like we could shut you up> speaking up </like we could shut you up>. You will be < fired >rewarded </fired > for your honesty. <middle finger> Have a great day < /middle finger >”

Perhaps my humor will also be able to transcend international borders and a whole new audience will become available to not get it!

States I have Visited

2004-05-02T13:32:00.000-05:00

Here is a map of the states I have visited. Only 8 to go. Not sure if it is worth visiting Nebraska though ;)

Help with my musical expansion

2004-04-28T16:07:00.000-05:00

I ran across this interesting site today. The concept is; tell it the name of a group you like and it will present you with groups of similar genre. Cool. When I used it, I found other groups that I really liked as well as some fringe artists that I had not considered. The site is Music Plasma.

Now how about a site where I can tell it which songs I like, my current mood, and my desired mood and it can play songs that will get me there.

The evolution of icons

2004-04-28T13:32:00.000-05:00

Check out the evolution of icons. Datagrid Girl posted this the other day. I think it is a sad commentary on how little we have learned in twenty years of UI design... Or maybe we got it right the first time ;)

Architectural Artifacts

2004-04-27T16:12:00.000-05:00

I am currently undertaking a project to document all system interactions within our organization. The intent is rather simple; create a list of all configuration items (to borrow an ITIL term) and document the inter-dependencies. The mathematical representation I use is a directed graph, where the vertices are CI's and the edges define the relationships. The direction of the edges moves from program to hardware. The classifications that I defined are:

Program - A business initiative (BI)

Program Component - A BI component

Internal Service, External Service, OS Service

Hardware

I should determine within the next few days if my directed graph model is correct (I hope) or I have to revert to a more complex undirected graph.

Biological Similarity

2004-04-21T08:13:00.000-05:00

Several weeks ago I was preparing a lecture on the current state of malware and anti-virus software, when I was struck with the biological equivelant. The body encounters viral payloads on a daily basis and either uses a previously learned signature to defeat them or learns a new signature based on the viral behavior. We currently have to rely on the master signature builder (AV software company) which creates a tremendous time lag between potential infection and a cure. If biological systems didn't operate autonomously... well I probably wouldn't be writing this blog! When will AV SW be smart enough to understand the behavior of code, stop it, and create a signature to thwart future attacks?

2004-04-20T14:28:00.000-05:00

Initial Entry
This is what I hope to be an extensive collection of security and enterprise architecture related topics