The very technology that makes our collective integration possible also distracts us from advancing it. In equilibrium, distraction and ambition square off at the singular point of failed progress. If the next generation of Moores, Joys, and Kurzweils are half as distracted as I am, we are going to find ourselves frozen right here, nodes in a wormy borg that never becomes a butterfly. My computer is turning out to be the interface to a giant network Skinner Box. But maybe Twitter is just God's way of making sure we're too distracted to destroy ourselves. Read more.

I was struck the other day by an article in the New York Times that describes the different approaches of the US and China to Afghanistan, in which the US shoulders the burden of war, while China reaps the benefits of commerce. As we head into the second decade of the 21st century, we as a nation, we as a world need to make good choices about where we invest our time, our resources, and our ingenuity. It's the job of our leaders to make choices that give us leverage, that is, that create multiplier effects on our efforts. I'd love to see, in this New Year, this new decade, deeper thinking about the society we want to build, and what kind of policies will encourage the market to make the right choices. And I'd love to hear your thoughts about policy choices that might encourage 21st century industries here in America and around the world. Read more.

I am flying to London this coming week on business. I have no idea if I will be able to use my laptop, emerge from my seat during the last hour of flight or be required to wear my underwear inside-out during the security check-in. Do I believe that any of these measures will contribute to passenger safety? No. After the recent foiled airline bomb incident one thing seems clear; we are constantly retrofitting our security measures to defend ourselves against the last attack. Often these measures seem like what Bruce Schneier in a great CNN article calls Security Theater. Read more.

In December, Amazon introduced a new feature for their cloud: EBS Boot Volumes. An EBS boot volume essentially provides the ability to boot from a virtual SAN. This new approach to booting virtual machines offers up a wealth of new capabilities in the Amazon Cloud. Among the security uses of EBS volumes I find most intriguing, however, is the use of EBS volumes in cloud-based forensics. Read more.

Can you believe it? 2009 is over! Where does the time go? Are you satisfied with your photography this year? Do you have photographic plans for 2010? Lightroom is an excellent program but it still needs you to feed it images. If you find yourself in a creative slump or the shooting doldrums don't despair! Leave all that in 2009 and look to the new year with fresh eyes! Here are ten suggestions to help you rekindle that passion for photography! Read more.

In my last article I talked about growing the skill of time estimation, and the different levels there are to the skill. In this article I'm going to discuss the different types of estimates you can provide. It's important to be explicit in the type of estimate you are providing, and to make sure your audience understands the type of estimate that they are receiving. For instance, there's SWAG. A swag is a Stupid Wild Ass Guess. I've also heard the first S sometimes stand for super, or scientific or sophisticated. It's not to create a timeline from. It's not to set expectations, its simply to give a rough idea of how long something or a piece of something might take. Read more.

It's no secret that I was really inspired by RIAdventure - I've been to and spoken at many conferences, but this was the first I had been to that was devoted to RIA's. One thing that was kind of nice and kind of odd was that I had the womens' bathroom to myself. This was nice, because the bathroom closest to our conference room had only one stall, but it underlined that I was the only woman there. This made me really curious about what other women might have been there had I been at a different conference. It's kind of difficult to find out much about conference attendees, so I thought I'd look at the women who have been speaking at recent conferences or are scheduled to speak in the next few months. Some of these women are ones I've known for a while, and others I discovered by going on this search. Read more.

Wooden Combination Lock -- you'll easily understand how combination locks work with this find piece of crafty construction work. This and more in today's Four Short Links.

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