However, when I read earlier today about the leak of the list of vital US facilities, I had to wonder just what they're thinking.

While it is questionable as to what the point was with the release, I doubt it is of much help to terrorists. I would assume it would rather draw a big yawn from them. Hitting vital targets is important for regular warfare, but for terrorists the real deal is, well, causing terror. And that is much more efficiently caused by hitting proper "soft" targets, people in highly public places (public gatherings), or things that are scary by nature to most people (airplanes). And specifically giving the idea that they might hit anyone, anywhere, at any time.

As such it is of little relevancy as to what actually is considered important for national security.

I kind of wish I was in a psychology course during all this..

My amateur psychologist impression is that many quoted officials are taking the "5 year old with tantrum" route. Slightly more refined than what terrible-two toddlers do, but still at kindergarten level. This is not meant as a snipe, but just an observation (not a flattering one of course, but no point in blaming mirror if face looks ugly).

I don't disagree with notion of "careful for what you wish for", but I would like to point out one fallacy in the statement:

*Being completely prone to a Pearl Harbor type surprise attack at any time

The reason Japanese attacked was exactly because they viewed US as having keen interest in things happening what they considered their sphere of interest; if US was seen as isolationist, there would have been little point in attacking. This is not necessarily much of a reason to become isolationist, but one consequence is that without being (or trying to be) an empire, you don't have many conflicts of interests with others who do.

And obviously defending yourself does not fall outside of "only care for what happens here"; information relevant to protecting yourself does fall within "what happens here" category.

The US State Department disagrees.

Yeah, same way as 95% of convicted criminals disagree with (a) finding of them being found guilty and (b) appropriateness of sentencing. Amongst other things. This is hardly news.

Meaning that they are hardly objective party; and their statements are based on what they want to see happen, not on objectively interpreting sets of laws.

Ask yourself how popular Linux would be today, if Linus had published a well-written series of introductory articles about it in the popular press, 20 years ago.

Simple answer: none more popular. Linux was not usable for most people back then, so why would they care?

Consider this: Minix was the operating system that was well documented by such articles. How popular is it nowadays, compared to Linux?

Btw, your point of usefulness of documentation and publishing is completely valid. I am just focused on trashing your case study here. :-)

I used to think this way, but over the years I have come to conclusion that talent as a factor tends to be overrated. Talent is important mostly for the absolute best in the field, where it can differentiate; but below that, hard work actually matters a lot. And hard work typically comes from enthusiasm of individual, and is part of virtuous cycle (see "10k hours rule") of one working hard doing things one likes, which is influenced by positive feedback.

This is just to say that while degree itself may not be all that important, having had to actually work to get it helps a lot, and so most people with degrees are better in their profession as a result. I certainly knew how to program well before college. But I also learnt a lot in college, and it would have taken much longer to get equivalent of theoretical knowledge. I was motivated to study of course, so just copying papers or code would have been of very little value.

Ok, I stand corrected. My information is obviously stale, came from a physician who mentioned this in late 80s (or early 90s), when it was used.

As has been pointed out, gold is not highly reactive, and is seldom a health concern for individuals. Further it is actually used as medication in small doses, particularly for rheumatoid arthritis (based on observations that gold rings gave some level of protection for finger joints -- exact mechanism is not fully known, as far as I know).

While there can be moderate and reasonable religious fundamentalists (as opposed to firebrand zealots), I think common definition of fundamentalism does make it unlikely that one could have views compatible with scientific worldview. As has been pointed out, at some point literal reading of the holy book does contradict commonly accepted scientific theories and observations. Fundamentalism then mandates taking claims of bible (or whatever holy book or dogma that religion has) as literal truth, instead of being allegory (which is what non-fundamentalist believes could accept); and scientific approach of theories having to be compatible with observations is thrown away.

So I think what you are talking about are not fundamentalists, but rather devoted believers, but ones that can accept that even religious texts can be either wrong, or use inexact metaphors and allegories to explain bigger concepts. It is completely possible to have non-fundamentalist religious views that are compatible with even rigorous scientific approach; many leading scientist are and have been believers.

If you believe someone can become a suicide terrorist without religion, then you really don't understand people... or religion.

For this to be true, you have to define religion quite loosely, however. Nationalism is another common and powerful mental model that produces terrorists of all types. In general, one just needs zealous all-consuming conviction. So while religion definitely can do this, it is not the sole source; unless you consider all zealous conviction to be kinds of religions (which is one possible angle, just not a common interpretation).

While I don't have knowledge of actual business plan, I think there is a good enough idea given that mr. A is actually investing at this point. He has reasonable track record; most people are not aware of exactly how many things he has been financing; and he would not throw money just for "cool stuff". For what it's worth I would suggest considering other social network investments he has made, and consider possibility of this particular piece working with others (read: making deals with other companies, with placements, cross-functionality and so forth). Money does not always have to come directly from users or indirectly via advertisement.

If and when their business idea is to get people interested, yes, they might want to focus bit more on making it blatanly obvious what they offer. I am sure there are many whose attention span is long enough to spend a minute digging for information; but there are many who do not, and after rather short amount of time give it up with "screw that, whatever" attitude. So unless they intentionally want to reduce audience it would seem like a good idea to, yes, make it ridiculously obvious instead of just possible to find out.

No, not at all. He did not say superman, but just someone capable of solving the problem. And like has been pointed out ALL projects need at least "one person with a clue". Given this, then, Agile approach is likely to be more efficient in getting to the outcome compared to "classic" top-down approach.

And yes, I have had pretty good experiences with Agile teams; as well as less-than-optimal experiences with in-name-only approach. In latter cases many developers actually wanted to back to old-fashioned top-down approach, mostly because that is what they were used to (never mind the fact that there had been big lay-offs when management had viewed the team as incompetent for taking so long to get anything down; partly due to analysis-paralysis).

There is no requirement that everything uses Agile style; it is possible to mix and match. Nor is there any reason why training, getting up to speed could not scheduled as regular task.

Basically, throwing inexperienced (or incompetent) people tasks they are not capable of doing is just basic management or team failure and has little to do with Agility or lack thereof.

Yeah, that would be nice. Its not just the admin stuff, its that Java VMs are notorious security risks.

As compared to completely safe native code?

Late 90s called, they want their FUD back, pronto.