Big Data Just Wants Get Bigger - FHFA Reports Its Data Getting Bigger

The following is a wild goose chase not worth reading and worthy of deletion.  Not deleted because it is a testimony to my time and inclinations to go on wild goose chases.  They are sort of an adventure to the extent that the adventure I often get is not the one I sought.

What I think after going on the goose chase, what I found while chasing after something else is worthwhile.  It is one thing to monitor and require reporting related to additional privacy data added to expanding governmental silo data bases.  More important in the world of information expansion is the aggregation of silo data bases as they connect to aggregated Big Data.

The reporting requirements aim at the silos.  Silos connect and by so doing become a component of Big Data.

What seems to be important and required is the monitoring of Big Data.  The problem is that bureaucracy is by nature segmented to agency responsibilities and their own silos.  Big Data is not segmented to agencies.

Privacy is increasingly a Big Data issue.  How does the government monitor that?  It is no longer an agency silo matter!


No benefit in reading beyond this point unless you care to be amused by me chasing my tail.  A frenetic activity that really did get me somewhere out of the circle in the end to a point where I could write the preceding paragraphs that only moderately justify the following waste of time.

Read further to waste time as I did:  It is background to enlightenment but nothing else.

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Big fish eat smaller fish and get eaten by bigger fishes.  That is the story of Big Data.  It just has a need to grow.

Big data bases eat smaller data bases by aggregating them.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency wants a bigger data base.   It "must" have it to fulfill their reporting requirements to Congress.  Therefore it must seek revision to an existing system of records.

"In accordance with the requirements of the Privacy Act of 1974, as amended, 5 U.S.C. 552a (Privacy Act), the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) gives notice of and requests comments on revisions to an existing system of records. The proposed revisions are to the system of records entitled “National Mortgage Database Project” (FHFA-21). The system of records covers the National Mortgage Database and the National Survey of Mortgage Borrowers."

 This is the link to 5 U.S.C 552a  Check it out.  No, I don't mean read it.  Just look at it by quickly scrolling its entirely.  The quicker the better but pic a few random sentences.  Who makes this stuff up?  The U.S. Code is a virtual hole to Wonderland that Alice fell into.  It is the law of the land in 200,000 pages. It is the cumulative product of our law making branch of government, with revisions.  It is a data base of information that has yet to see the light of the information age that structures information for the purpose of general knowledge extraction.  In its current form it protects and rewards those that use it to their advantage to help themselves and their clients while masquerading it as helping "We the People".  Who dat?  Lawyers and their cronies in Congress that make the laws.  Its Politics.  "Forget it, Jake.  Its Chinatown."

From Notice Of Revision To An Existing System Of Records; Request For Comments.

As required by the Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. 552a(r), and pursuant to paragraph 4c of Appendix I to OMB Circular No. A-130, “Federal Agency Responsibilities for Maintaining Records About Individuals,” dated February 8, 1996 (61 FR 6427, 6435 February 20, 1996), FHFA has submitted a report describing the system of records covered by this notice to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform of the House of Representatives, the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs of the Senate, and the Office of Management and Budget.

So, what is to be concluded here?  Must every Federal Agency of government with responsibilities for maintaining records about individuals have to submit a similar report every time they want a revision to "An Existing System of Records".

Glory be!  It it was only true!  A way to monitor the privacy related data management of the federal government!

If an agency can't find a loop hole in the USC to exclude them from this requirement then they are either blind, not trying very hard or need to perpetuate a bloated work force by the old strategy of "make work".

Working for the government often produces experts in boiler plate recognition and usage.  It is a short cut to producing lengthy works of art that at first glance look like gems of original creativity.

Boilerplate Alert!

This is the first line of the FHFA submission that quacks like a duck that knows how to cut and paste:

"Notice Of Revision To An Existing System Of Records; Request For Comments."

The law, 5 U.S.C. 552a(r) seems to require that any agency not exempt from making the same submission has to make the submission if the agency is going to make a similar generic change to their systems.  Considering that information systems are growing and changing all the time that would mean a big bunch of similar submissions.

Goggle the obvious boilerplate term in quotes "Notice Of Revision To An Existing System Of Records; Request For Comments."  There are a total of 8 results.  All of the results are related specifically to the FHFA submission except one which a spam link to a French site.

WTF!  Why only FHFA complying with what seems like a very broad law requirement applicable to all government agencies to either comply with or find an exemption Easter Egg.

Is the FHFA guilty of creating an original work of significant effort where no boilerplate was available to satisfy what seems like a broad legal requirement of the US Code, the law of the land that obviously would apply to government agencies across the board making the same changes to their  “Federal Agency Responsibilities for Maintaining Records About Individuals,” ???

If so, FHFA wins extremely rare bragging rights to the original creation of government boiler plate to be cut and paste, fill in the blanks use by all other government agencies that have to comply with the same US Code requirements?

Or did FHFA set a precedent of being the first to honestly comply with the law of the US Code and thereby requiring all other agencies facing the same requirement to also comply.  That, of course, would either heap collective governmental agency scorn upon the FHFA for doing what they were required legally to do and being the only one to do it.  The results (again, of course) will probably be some revision exempting everyone from complying as FHFA did.

From  Appendix I to OMB Circular A-130

All Federal Agencies. In addition to meeting the agency requirements contained in the Act and the specific reporting and publication requirements detailed in this Appendix, the head of each agency shall ensure that the following reviews are conducted as often as specified below, and be prepared to report to the Director, OMB, the results of such reviews and the corrective action taken to resolve problems uncovered. The head of each agency shall:

 3.a(8): Systems of Records Notices. Review biennially each system of records notice to ensure that it accurately describes the system of records. Where minor changes are needed, e.g., the name of the system manager, ensure that an amended notice is published in the Federal Register. Agencies may choose to make one annual comprehensive publication consolidating such minor changes. This requirement is distinguished from and in addition to the requirement to report to OMB and Congress significant changes to systems of records and to publish those changes in the Federal Register (See paragraph 4c of this Appendix).

4c of the Appendix:
New and Altered System of Records Report. The Act requires agencies to publish notices in the Federal Register describing new or altered systems of records, and to submit reports to OMB, and to the Chair of the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight of the House of Representatives, and the Chair of the Committee on Governmental Affairs of the Senate. The reports must be transmitted at least 40 days prior to the operation of the new system of records or the date on which the alteration to an existing system takes place.


4c(1) Which Alterations Require a Report. Minor changes to systems of records need not be reported. For example, a change in the designation of the system manager due to a reorganization would not require a report, so long as an individual's ability to gain access to his or her records is not affected. Other examples include changing applicable safeguards as a result of a risk analysis or deleting a routine use when there is no longer a need for the disclosure. The following changes are those for which a report is required:






(a) A significant increase in the number, type, or category of individuals about whom records are maintained. For example, a system covering physicians that has been expanded to include other types of health care providers, e.g., nurses, technicians, etc., would require a report. Increases attributable to normal growth should not be reported. (b) A change that expands the types or categories of information maintained. For example, a benefit system which originally included only earned income information that has been expanded to include unearned income information.
(c) A change that alters the purpose for which the information is used.
(d) A change to equipment configuration (either hardware or software) that creates substantially greater access to the records in the system of records. For example, locating interactive terminals at regional offices for accessing a system formerly accessible only at the headquarters would require a report.
(e) The addition of an exemption pursuant to Section (j) or (k) of the Act. Note that, in examining a rulemaking for a Privacy Act exemption as part of a report of a new or altered system of records, OMB will also review the rule under applicable regulatory review procedures and agencies need not make a separate submission for that purpose.
(f) The addition of a routine use pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 552a(b)(3).

My concluding comment on all this:  There should be a large number of notices published in the Federal Register.

Maybe I am not using the key word phrase search term that is generally used to describe the report submitted by government agencies in compliance with the requirement?I used the wrong search term.  Googling this gets 104,000 results:  Notice Privacy Act of 1974; System of Records. Agencies are complying.  It would be much easier to track if they all used a report identification number with a specified mandatory standard subject phrase describing the report.
   

Total Currency Awareness

Total Information Awareness in an NSA program model and strategy for security management mission statement accomplishment.





It takes the creation of a whole new ball game in which the government claims its sovereign right to the monetary currency system in order to establish a system in which every single unit of currency is associated with a unique owner of that currency in an owner account.

New Ball Game:

The master unit of currency record is owned by the government.  

The master account record for each unique owner of each uniquely serialized currency unit in the government owned currency record is the domain of private enterprise.

An unique private account relates directly to the currency units owned by that account existing in the government currency account.  Changes in private ownership of currency as a function of the medium of exchange transferring money from one account to another cause a change in relationship of who owns what specific units of currency.

The government has absolute information relating to all money in the system at both the macro and micro levels.

Private accounting agencies have, in aggregate, total information of all current owners of money.  The total of all owners accounts equals as all times, traceable to the unique secure serialized dollar unit the total of all government currency in the system.   Private accounting agencies also own the ownership change history record.

When the government has probable cause it can access private agency current and history information for any given account.

Rule:  Every entity that uses money as a medium of exchange must have an account identity to use the money.  Account identity rules enforce identity information requirements.

Total Currency Awareness:  There is always a finite amount of money currency in the system.  At any given time it can be known who owns what currency units in the system and all the accounts that units of currency in the system that previously owned that unit.  Total accountability.

The system requires that money be shifted from a debt base bank creation system to an asset based government creation system.

The controlling balance in the asset based system is this:

All government owned and controlled currency assets (public money) equals, to the unit dollar, the total of currency money in all privately held account records.

The law:  Public money is the only money for the settlement of debts public and private.

What about loans and debts, the banking business?  That is simply another business transaction like buying a 6 pack except money buys money.  Banking, aside from its accounting function, which leaves only finance, I suppose is a sub system dealing with debt and all its debit and credit ideas and systems that currently and dysfuntionally are the basis for the entire system.  Finance is just another thing that money buys among a multitude of other things.  The system is rigged when finance creates money rather than use perpetually existing asset money.

"Total Currency Information"  is a conceptual phrase that I hereby plant my flag on today and claim it as my own discovery with bragging rights of author ownership today documented by the public posting of this blog entry.  A google search on those words in quotes returns no results.  If it is not in the Big Data google cloud then it does not exist.

Now it does.  I created it.  I brought it into existence.  Mine!

Big Thrill!

What is this novel conceptual term?

Glad you asked.

Brush up on what Currency is at Wikipedia.  Somebody long ago took credit for the creation of that term.  OMG!  It was probably not even originally English!  However, the USA gives it more meaning than anybody else being the Reserve Currency Dominatrix of the word today.  Check back tomorrow.

This is the conceptual structure for Total Currency Awareness:

Background to this conceptual structure set up

It is founded on the absolute sovereign right of the USA government (of the people) to create its own Sovereign Currency. with laws of the land to make it the one and only "monopoly currency" to used as a medium of exchange.  The USA sub-contracted the right to create money used as currency to the Federal Reserve, a centralized private banking system.  The money system is all smoke and mirrors to hide the fact that it sucks as a money system and benefits beyond belief or reason those private business plays that have captured control of money as currency.

This is a de facto statment:   Banks totally own and control both what money is and a majority control what money does.  Banks own the whole system.

There are only two parts to any system.  The system "thing" is one.  What that thing "does" is the other.  It is a very fundamental binary relationship but it is not a system until there are "two things that interaction called "doing something" in relationship to each other.  It is a natural law.  Think about it.  What is the sound of one hand clapping?

Restructure the Currency Monetary system:  Separate what money is from what money does.  Currently the nature of what money is and what it does is bundled and both are under the control of banks in a single thing called an Account.  That is bad information engineering.

Bad information engineering from the very start.  That of course was engineered by the banking system to create a dysfunctional system for their benefit and protect it with smoke and mirrors confusion.

Watch the movie "In Time"

Time is money.  Units of time.  Time is centrally controlled.  Time is earned.  Time is spent.  It is the medium of exchange.  When people run out of time they die.  The central controller knows how much time each person has.  Each person knows, they are their own accountant.

It is a thought provoking movie.

The central controller of time restricts it, determines its value, manipulates it for its own benefit.

If the central controller is a government that controls it for the benefit of the people it is an entirely different movie.  Time becomes a resource to benefit all.

Let the good times roll!

Debt must be moved from the driver seat of the monetary system structure design to a position of just another use sector of the monetary system and the system relationship of what money is and what money does must be managed by two separate entities.  What money is becomes a exclusively public governmental domain and what money does is the private domain.  The government keeps the record of every single uniquely identified, serialized unit of digital money in "circulation".  The private domain keeps the record of accounts owning those dollars. 

In the prior paragraph "circulation" is in quotes to ironically call attention to the fact that currency does not circulate.  It is a fixed record that never changes or moves except that it can be expanded or contracted in magnitude for monetary system control.  The only thing that moves is changing ownership of the currency from one account to another in a medium of exchange transaction.

Can A Nation Save?

Can A Nation Save?  Those 4 words are highlighted in blue because they are a link to a question asked by Rumplestatskin in the macrobusiness,com.au website.  It was posted 29 May 2014 and at the time I read it on 29 May there were 58 comments on it.  Australia is a day ahead of the USA.

This blog is aimed at understanding what money is by looking at it like Darwin looked at nature and figured it out.  Maybe that is my problem.  It can't be figured that way because there is no "natural logic" to its structure.  No order of things to be discovered.  It is a maze of smoke and mirrors.

I read through the link and throw my hands up in frustration and anger.  I do not understand it.  Those that offer comments have valid ideas.  What does it all mean.  What is the answer to the question?

Save what?  It talks about money, it talks about resources.  It talks about borrowing from the future.  it talks about exchange rates.  It talks about what money is as well as what money does.  It talks about saving and debt.

I am confused as I ever was and still am.  I have gotten nowhere because I just can't follow the conceptual logic of the statements made at the link.

To all those that would say that I don't understand it because I did not start by learning all the fundamental principles of money and the building blocks of money and economics I say:

Stick it!

It is a system that defies reason and logic.  It is a balanced system in a negative based universe.  I can only think in the domain of a positive based universe and build my understanding of money and economics in that domain.  A domain where currency is money.  All else is expressed as money values measured in terms of the currency.  What that structured system of what currency is really  does in operation is economics.

What we call currency is debt based.  There is always a balance between debt and credit.

The only way I can understand what "money" is to say that the term money is starting the attempt to understand as a lost cause from the start.  It must be a focus on "currency".

Currency,  Currency, Currency.  "Money" is a marshmallow term that has no object identity other than a number in an account.

Trying to understand currency and what the game players call money and economics is trying to play their game when their game is claimed to be the only game in town.  Why do we play it?  It is the only game.  A debt based game.  A resource extraction game based on debt.

Debt is a future oriented concept to the extent it must be paid back in the future in its measurement unit: currency.

Asset is a present oriented concept to the extent that it is a function of past debt paid off in its measurement unit: currency.

As past debt is paid off in the current system and currency is extinguished , new debt is established by creating more currency out of nothing.

Assets are the cumulative trail of benefit that the debt money cycle leaves behind?

Is that what is being saved?  What we get from all this money and economics system.

If we view our own existence and life as an Ultimate Asset then is not everything expended or maintained in sustaining it and enhancing it an asset builder at both the micro and macro level?

I will never figure out money as long as it is a debt based system.

Can you or anyone read through the link and say they understand it and have the clear concise answer to the question.  I can't see one in the discussion and it appears to be an intelligent one.

It is all too much like understanding religion.  It might be understood based on its premise.  It all depends on the premise chosen and faith in its believe.  Those that call their faith truth seem to understand it but that is the model of the debt based money system that calls a faith based system the truth.

Currency must be conceptually structured on a natural law system.  The currency system we have now is a faith based system.  Faith structured on debt and future repayment.

Structuring currency on an asset based system owes nothing to the faith in the future to establish the value of what it is.  What asset based currency does, and that to me is the definition of economics, is where we express our faith in the future of continuing and supporting the quality of our lives.

What is saving?  Saving the future by perpetuating it in terms of a natural resource cycle supporting our conceptual social existence based on currency money as our resource allocation decision making tool defines the term "Saving"

Ultimately a nation and collectively the world cannot save unless it can pay back in resources in the future resources that were consumed today.  In a debt based system built for extraction the debt grows beyond the ability to make future payback.  Then we all become impoverished  and in a debtors global prison.

Pay as you go with what you have is a balanced asset system when it is not debt based to leverage self defeating drawing from the future what cannot be paid back.  If that puts a control on the holy mantra of growth for the sake of more growth for the holy purpose of consumption then that is a self control that we must place upon ourselves to save the future.

Bill Black always gives me inspiration when I need it.  My other heroes do too.  Today Bill posted at New Economic Perspectives:   "The OCC Carefully Studies How To Fail"

"The consistent explanation for our making things worse is that dogmas lead to “doubling down” on failed faith-based policies.  The dominant ideologues in the U.S. and Europe on financial policies are theoclassical economists and their fellow choir members – neoclassical economists"

Our fundamental system is built on the wrong premise.  However that may be, at least the dysfunctional system could work better if regulated and Bill is first and foremost in saying that.  He not only says it but is proof that regulation works.  He did it. 

Secure Mountain

Secure Mountain

"Secure Mountain, LLC offers commercial and government clients highly secure, agile solutions to store, utilize, and share their growing mountains of data."

Interesting hole in the ground.  Secure for sure.  One way in one way out?  It is the Foote Mineral Company mine reported here.

Secure Mountain contact business office is located at 2830 Nicholas AvenueRoanoke, VA 24012

R&R Ornamental Iron is also located at the same address.

Allegheny Construction is also located at the same address.  Andy Douthat is President of Allegheny Construction Inc. and an adviser to Secure Mountain.

CyberspaceOperations Consulting CSOC

CyberspaceOperations Consulting CSOC is staffed from the government/military world.

Senior Consultant  CSOC link here.

Thirteen Generals

One Admiral

One Astronaut

One Lawyer, a former General Counsel at Lockheed  to do what lawyers do.
and
George W. Foresman (link to bio).  Connections to government/politics.  He is president of Secure Mountain

CSOC Corporate Leadership link here

CyberspaceOperations Consulting is located at 3345 Muirfield Dr Colorado Springs.  It is the residence of Ed Rios, Colonel USAF, ret. President and Chief Executive Officer, CSOC

Audience Aggregation

I ran across a new term this morning that grabbed my interest:  "Audience Aggregation"

The term rang the "Big Data" bell in my head and started me thinking.

A movie theater is an Passive "Audience Aggregator".   It gets a viewing audience by selling admission tickets to movie goers are the attending audience.

The movie industry is an Active "Audience Aggregator" advertising the movie to a broad potential movie attending audience.  Marketing.

If Big Data has information about everybody then all that is necessary is to search big data on "Audience Type Name" and the analytic program produces "Audience Aggregation Data".  Perhaps it is ranked in attendance probability.  The Aggregated Audience is the target market down to the individual identification name level.

Audience Aggregation =  Ultimate Marketing

Audience Aggregation =  Business Intelligence

Business Intelligence has a strong connection to Business Objective.....which is......Profit!

That is about as simple as following the money.

"Collective Needles" in the "Big Data" haystack is my definition of "Audience Aggregation" in a Big Data driven environment. 

Audience Aggregation in the "Big Data" world is "Data Driven Marketing" With information analysis tools to identify individual marketing targets.  Just like identifying drone targets in a different business sector.  Both sectors driven by the same model:  Total Information.  Only the application of Total Information is different.

Security Warfare sector is the leader in Big Data collection, analysis to create knowledge and specific target identification for action.

Big government programs that private industry could not undertake are often the initial front end investment in research producing a model as well as means to apply it on a large scale that spins off to private industry application.  Examples too numerous to mention.

It would not be surprising to find that private industry in partnership with the development of security and intelligence for the government would become highly involved in application of the intelligence models and methods to commercial applications.

At the core of "Big Data" is the physical facility where all that Big Data is stored, the "Big Data Base" that organizes it and the application programs that feed it, analyze it and produce actionable information and knowledge.  Evidence of all of this is what "Big Data" does when it is ultimately applied to that needle in the haystack and collectively to all the same needles in the haystack. 

Big Data Application Programs are a key to relating Big Data government program development to its spin off to commercial application in the business world.  The Big Data Application Programs and the companies that produce them are key to connecting government intelligence to business intelligence sectors.

The other key connector of government Big Data intelligence model and systems to  commercial Big Data is the key players that migrate from government to industry.  First order of business for these top level migrators is simply continuing to apply their knowledge and expertise to government systems but from the private industry side.  Emerging growth opportunities are open to those same people on the purely Business Intelligence sector.  Big Data is fundamentally generic early front running movers and shaker individuals in the Business Intelligence world will most likely come from top level government positons.

How Big is "Big Data"???

How big is "Big Data"?

I think it is ultimately absolutely all information about a thing. 

Another way of looking at what it is defined not in ultimate terms but what it is today gives me the view that it is bigger every day and growing with increasing rapidity toward an ultimate state of all information about every thing like chasing a carrot on the end of a stick but really making progress by some definition of the term while doing it.  That sounds like a conundrum but they are always something to think about.

Some definitions are necessary and Wikipedia provides them in relation to Data:

Data, information and knowledge are closely related terms, but each has its own role in relation to the other. Data are extracted from information, and knowledge is derived from data.

Total Information is the source from which data is extracted and knowledge is derived from that data.

Total information about a person, meaning absolutely all information about them is really information about all their external entity relationships.  A single person is a uniquely identifiable object that has behaviors that it knows in order to implement its various relationships with its environment.

Past performance of all interactions of a single person with its worldly environment is an predictor of future behavior.  Unless, of course they go completely of their rocker.  It happens but statistically rare for any given individual to go totally off their rocker but not so rare when unpredictable actions of an individual occur.  Maybe only unpredictable because not all information about a person's past interactions with its environment were recorded as information about them in their "Big Data" record.

Who has the biggest consolidated aggregate existing "Big Data" record for any single or collectively all people in the USA?

The NSA

However, that is the biggest in one single owned and operated cloud to which has total access.

Aggregate all the privately owned and operated "Information Silo" segmented information  "Big Data" clouds containing personal information about a unique individual and they are obviously far greater than anything that the NSA can imagine and the NSA has a very big imagined objective in the personal information business.  It also had big bucks with which to dream on.

Privately owned or publicly available Silo Big Data is only big in the context of the nature and scope  of the focus of the Silo.  Put Silos together and they become "Bigger Data"  Bigger Data is Better Data.  Hey, that is a good simple slogan for the Big Data, Big Business world and putting fragmented information Silos together is really Big Business and getting bigger all the time.

The License Plate Reading LPR business that was the subject of previous blog entries is a simple example of aggregating privately owned Information Silo information data bases to a single sector global cloud accessible by all customers of the LPR industries.

The NSA has lead the way in aggregating Silo information.  Information recorded in a different ways on different operation systems with different application programs.  It has done this in partnership with the Private Information Management Industry.  The same industry that can do the same thing for Commercial information Silos.  It is either done by:

1.   Translating, reformatting, massaging information from its often unique and difficult to translate native Silo state to a common aggregated state.
or
2.  Providing the dominant industry sector programming to all players in each industry sector to make the aggregation of Silo information to single sector Silo a seamless cloud system.
or, reasonably:
Some combination of 1 and 2 in order to get to number 2 situation.

There is a problem in aggregating sector Silo information owned and operated by different "Big Businesses" competing in that sector.  The big players often probably view their information Silo as proprietary and a substantial investment essential to maintain information asymmetry advantage necessary in a competitive environment. 

The situation of the prior paragraph is overcome when the Big Players in Big Business sector recognize that pooling their individual Silo information in a partnership association has a greater benefits to them than than maintaining their own Silo System.  Those benefits may be cost reduction as well as exclusion or creation of significant bars to entry of potential additional competitors.

Another attractive benefit of competing players pooling Silo Information to a common outsourced Silo for associated members to use is that that consolidated "Big Data" Sector Silo can be monetized in ways that their individual Silos could not.  Some benefit going back as payments to the players, some going to the outsourced "Big Data Sector Silo" entity.

Question:  Who is behind "Big Data Sector Silo Information Aggregation Entities"?  

Answer: Private Equity Investors that see "Silo Information Aggregation" as a very profitable business opportunity.

The business model of investors in Silo Information Aggregation is:  "Let's you and your competitor get together and make more money".  Make more money in areas where it pays more to each of you to cooperate than compete.  Not only that but it protects each of you from potential fractionalization of your business sector.  (Can you say shared fiefdom?)  Shades of the Mafia model?

Sidebar here:  Google the term "Silo Information Aggregation" and there is exactly one hit at the time I write this.  "Silo Aggregation" gets 43 hits.  Cursory qualitative analysis of results gives me the view that nearly all of them relate to internal business enterprise silo integration.

A Multiple Listing Service  is in my view a multiple silo aggregation service model bringing together independent silo data bases and integrating them to monetize an information aggregated information data base in ways that were beyond the scope of fragmented silo data bases.

Big Data is an organic entity that seeks and thrives upon its own growth toward even Bigger Data.  As it grows it consolidates silo information to the benefit of those holding silo information as well as the benefit of the Big Data industry players.  It is a Big Business  cooperation to enhance and protect Big Business profit.

How Big is "Big Data" in the Collective Customer Service Sector

Image for a moment that the aggregate of all Customer Service businesses that in sum total make it a business sector is the NSA.  It wants to know all possible information about the customer prior to the time of customer contact so that it may serve the customer better. 

That requires a broad "Big Data" database from which to draw customer information.  All possible recorded communication/contact interactions of that customer and related records of the content of interaction/communication.  All information and analytics specifically related to the specific customer seeking service available in real time triggered by a customer call.  Available even before that call is actually answered so that it may be directed to a selected Customer Service Representative with the greatest probability of success in resolving that customer's concerns.

All Customer Service businesses must certainly have some kind of existing customer service data base to operate from.  Some history of prior contact information.  Someplace to record individual contact information for future use if none currently exists.

Businesses share information with associated affiliates.  They may do that.  They may monetize their data base with an affiliate outsourced data aggregator that provides a aggregated industry "Big Data" data base accessible to all of the contributors.  That is exactly the model of the License Plate Recognition (LPR) data aggregator that was the subject of a prior blog post.  It aggregates the data as an outsourced function from independent LPR businesses to make a single data base available to the vehicle Repo industry.

Begin to imagine all the information that potentially could exist in a commercial aggregation of consumer data to a consolidated outsourced "Big Data" data base.

Imagine if it was the NSA imagining that instead of you.

The NSA might decide that it would be better to outsourced the collection, retention and access to that "Big Data" data base rather than either collect that information themselves or duplicate the collection of that same information.

The ideas in this blog beg the question:

Is there a "Big Data" aggregator business seeking to capture as an outsourced agency customer service information from industry players and offer to them as collective associates access to the "Big Data" data base to "enhance" the service their business provides to their own identified customers?

Who might "Big Data" aggregator be or who are the big players competing to be that single king of the "Big Data" business.

A single "Big Data" data base is as big as "Big Data" can get.

Who is or potentially will be the NSA of the Commercial Sector?  That business that will, by the nature of the advantage of "Big Data" be the single go to outsourced source.  By virtue of single single source of all information will dominate the consumer "Big Data" market?

Who will be by legal standing of an "Associate" business of any participating business entity the "Associate" that they may by law share customer information with?  The "Associate" that will emerge as the sole entity aggregating all the Big Data.

The nature of "Big Data" is that it is only the "Big Data" player if it has more than anyone else.  Or in other words, it has it all.  Any player that has less "Big Data" than another is a loser until the last "Bigger Data" player is left standing.

It is reasonable to conclude that there will eventually be a "Big Data" player for each industry sector.  Reading the writing on the wall there would be a single point of entry to "Big Data" that would have core consumer customer service information that would link to the specific industry (or that industry for which outsourcing participants pay to have access to) for which customer information is desired.

Associated with the "Last Big Data Consumer Data Aggregator Left Standing" is the application program and network system and marketing plan that the "King of Big Data" owns to accomplish their dominance.

TRG is a big player in Customer Service.  Some investigation would reveal the other contenders.

Globys is not a big player in Telecom and Financial Services industry sectors but I am sure there are a lot of wannabees that will fall along the way in the shake out.  One of those small players in this beginning game of "Survivor" may emerge.  A small player with a solid data aggregation and marketing system could be a dark horse.

"Globys is a big data analytics company that specializes in contextual marketing and reporting and analytics for telecom and financial service providers. Backed by 15 years of real-world success, our cloud-based technology solutions help companies increase revenues and retention by anticipating individual customer needs and dynamically delivering highly personalized experiences and contextual marketing campaigns."

"Globys"  sounds like a funny business name but so was Google.  The Globys motto:  Insight Into Action".  Hmmmm.....I like that!  Why couldn't the NSA come up with a customer oriented motto like that?  Definitely an institutional lack of imagination and humor.

 Place your bets.  The nature of the race course is obvious.  Big money will be made off "Big Data" in many ways.  The race course was designed by the big players that provide information systems like Oracle and the other big players.  Now it is the ones that apply those "Big Data" system capabilities to make money using them to Monetize the Big Data Base.

It looks like a horse race with one big winner.

That winner's stated objective is to maximize the Customer Service Experience.

For whom will it be maximized?

There are only two player in that relationship.

One of them is the "Customer Consumer".

You.
and,
Me.

The other player says the customer comes first?

NSA probably says that too in addition to "Total Information All the Time in Real Time".

How Big is "Big Data" in the Collective Customer Service Sector?

Strange:  Nobody reads this blog but as soon as I posted there were two page views.

Did I just become a customer to  "Big Data"?

Ironic speculation is simply fun!

How Big Data Can Improve Marketing and Customer Service 

"The ability to collect vast amounts of data on individual consumers—their consumption habits, their preferences, their interactions with the company—and then analyze those data sets for predictive behavior and proactively apply those insights both to your existing customers and to customers coming into your call center or your website or your agents office, [that's] the basis of competitive advantage in the future for the CMO because you can provide a better experience," says Matt Jauchius, CMO of Nationwide Insurance.

Monetary Operating System Paradigm Shift From A Debt Based Operating System

Our current monetary system is totally wrong because its structure is based on the wrong foundation.  That foundation is that debt creates money.  Money is the product of debt.  Creation of debt relationship creates money.  Paying back debt puts money out of existence. 

Money is born from nothing by contractual debt establishment and dies through payback to satisfy the contract that gave it birth.  It is a constant process ongoing process.  During the time between birth and death money exists as our money supply for us to use in daily money buying/selling transactions and a stored money working fund to draw from.

Our monetary system is a negative based system owing its existence and operation entirely to the fact that it is driven by the obligation at the micro analysis level to reduce a negative state (money borrowed that is owed) to zero.  Balance sheet accounting is system to control this structure.

Debt is the dominant object that drives the structure of the system.  Money is a function of debt that serves the dominant object.  That structural relationship is absolutely dysfunctional and primarily serves the designers of this system: Bankers and Financiers.

To sum up the concept of the thing called money as currency:

The purpose of money is to serve the current debt system structure.

That relationship is structurally wrong and dysfunctional.

The purpose of money and fundamental basis for a money system must be to serve as a medium of exchange.  Debt is only one the unlimited things that money can buy in a market world where everything is for sale.   Debt like anything else is just a thing to buy.  Debt is a contractual relationship and that relationship is simply one of the applications of a monetary system.

Money is an operating system. What money does are the Applications of the system.  Debt is just an single Application.  In the current monetary system Debt is the operating system and money is a creation Application.

Money must be  a Universal Operating Information System open to all the multitude of Applications that run on the system.  Debt must be designed to operate as just another App that runs on the system. 

That requires that money as the Operating System be a positive primary Object building block with object properties and primitive methods to implement its operating system relationships.

Money must be defined is a positive persistent conceptual object with methods and behaviors required to support its applications.  At the fundamental object level each unit of money must therefore have a unique identity and unit value.

The appropriate Monetary Operating System designer is the government.  In other words, we, the users of our own system.  System administrators may be the Banking System. 

IBEX Global - Privacy Policy- Customer Call Centers

Recording and storing customer service communications has significant aspects intelligence gathering and analysis that obviously must relate to some explanation of corporate privacy policy.

IBEX privacy policy is at this link.  The privacy policy statement is applicable to web contact.  It does not refer to any voice contact.

I could not find any Ibex privacy policy related to telephone contact.  Perhaps there is not since the caller is told the call is recorded.  Is the recording therefore subject to any use for any purpose by  IBEX?  Something to check on and find out.

This is an IBEX Global Solutions Plc business profile link

SocialMpresa and TRG Holdings are listed as having the same address as IBEX
1700 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Suite 560
Washington DC 20006

TRG is a holding company that describes itself:

"More recently, our portfolio companies are leading "big-data" driven revolutionary advances in the business process outsourcing sector, analyzing and capitalizing on complex human behavioral patterns and business process data flows." 

TRG has a low news profile.  There are no results on any of the various TRG business titles.  A private equity investment group.  It is very private.

TRG International uses the same logo as TRG Holdings Llc

This link is TRG in the UK 

SATMAP is a TRG product and is explained at this link.  While the SATMAP site does not mention any connection to TRG it has a contact point at the same address as TRG.

So, her's the deal.  This is why I took an interest in TRG and SATMAP.  This is SATMAP described at this link: 

It does not take a genius to realize that to match up a caller to an agent requires a data base on each.  The agent has to take a test to establish their profile.  The caller?  That requires a Big Data repository of all intelligence data related to the caller.  How big is that Big Data Base of history calls?  Is it a data base shared among "partners" in the call center sector?  One that each partner contributes to and draws from because they have the right to share privacy information with "affiliates"?

Where exactly is the TRS privacy policy statement  regarding the use of customer service telephone recordings that they advise may be used for quality assurance? 

Total Information All the Time is not just a business model for the NSA.

	SATMAPTM
	We all know that our customers are individuals. Some are young; some are in their golden years. Some are men and some are women. Some are affluent and some have modest means. All of them are unique, each one with the infinite diversity and personality that makes a person one of a kind. Our agents are also individuals. They have different personalities, different strengths. This goes beyond a mere assessment of what skills agents have. This goes to the heart of who they are as unique human beings. SATMAP™ is a neural network based artificial intelligence system that monitors and matches over one hundred demographic and psychographic variables to optimally match calls between your customers and agents. When personalities are compatible, people establish rapport and build empathy. In a SATMAP™ contact center, callers and agents interact better, conversations get to the point faster, and understanding improves. This ultimately drives call success.

Big Data Aggregation --Ibex Global

I made a previous blog entry with the same title.  It used a specific sector example.

I don't know if this is another example since I have not yet validated the idea with an investigation.

Customer service call centers are big business with many players.  They record conversations for quality assurance.  Each of the big player has a big data base of calls to analyze and monetize.

What if all the big players got together and pooled their call recorded data for analysis and extraction of information about consumers.  What is it that could be extracted?

Intelligence extraction is big business.  There is cross over from government technology to business.  Big business is under big contract to the government to develop Intelligence systems.

So, what can be extracted from customer service calls and use for advantage to make more money and how can it be done?

Hmmmm? 

Voice analysis?  Customer profile including preferences, history of contact and its nature with any and all customer service call centers?  Customer ranking profile related to the most advantageous method of resolution based on the profile ranking.  Maybe extending to routing the call to the most appropriate customer care representative to maximize resolution success?

Identification of the callers most dangerous to successful resolution?

Ibex Global is a big player in the Customer Service outsourcing business.

What might Ibex be doing with all the recorded customer service telephone calls.  What information is collected.  How could this "Big Data" be monetized?

SATMAP is an IBEX management tool:  This explanation from t he website:

This site lists the various industries they offer solutions to.

SATMAP is a patented product that optimally matches callers to agents based on personality by using neural networks to identify subtle, non-linear patterns of success utilizing historical call data. It aids in increasing the customer satisfaction score (C-Sat) by 4-6% & sales upto 15%. Highlights of the solution include:

• Real-time technology solution that requires no change to normal call center operations (AHT, ASA, staffing, and other metrics unaffected)
• Rapid and straightforward installation
• IBEX Global has a proven, structured, repeatable, implementation methodology in place with experienced project management resources ready to deploy
• IBEX Global's offer is a blended solution incorporating SATMAP as an integrated aspect of the call center solution.
• Implementation is non-invasive requiring minimal resources and time 
•  
• This site lists the various industries they offer solutions to.
•  

China is Collapsing--Again and Again

This is my last blog post on China collapsing.

Based on somebody's economic model it is and must collapse.  The holy model tells us so! 

The sky is falling!

At this link written by David Stockman: Why China Will Implode:  It is a Monumental Building Aberration, Not an Economy

I am a nobody, I really know nothing about all this.  All I have are some thoughts formed by my own views of the problem domain by just looking at money, economy, society like Darwin looked at nature and tried to figure it all out.  Darwin had it easy because Nature, when the model is figured out is essentially rather easy to comprehend because it is a rational system with natural laws.

From the link:

"In fact, China is a grotesque economic aberration that bears no relationship to prior economic history or any conventional economic models – not even to the export-mercantilism model originally developed by Japan, and which has now proven itself wholly unsustainable. Instead, China is a nation that has gone mad building, speculating, and borrowing on the back of a credit bubble so monumental (and dangerously unstable) that its implications are resolutely ignored by observers deluded by the notion that China embodies a unique economic model called “red capitalism.” "

Illustrating the madness is the production of cement on credit trillions of time more than used in the great wall---that is my own hyping of the magnitude of crazyness.

The USA during WWII went crazy building stuff and the stuff itself had no lasting evidence of being build like unoccupied cities and roads to nowhere.  The stuff built went poof on a one way trip like bombs being dropped, which of course was a stimulated rebuilding.  Money was borrowed to do that.

All that war money went into the hands of people to spend it.  All that war developed expertise went into building commerce and economy.

Seems to me that the greatest economic stimulus of WWII that advanced the USA so fast and so far was built on demolishing cities outside the USA while China's will be based on constructing cities, occupied or not, roads, used or not, in its own country.

What is this all some kind of joke to say China is doomed?

Seems to me that they skipped the step of making death and destruction pay off well by putting money in the hands of people that produced the means to accomplish it.

China went directly to building and producing some things that had as much real value in the end as war production.

Waste is waste.

There is a social good that results from planned and intended waste.

Production of waste related stuff of any nature puts money in the hands of people that can spent on consumerism and drive the economy re-oriented to produce consumer goods to satisfy demand after the waste is over?? 

Is that some kind of model?

Maybe the traditional economic model says that China is doomed.  That however is based on the debt money model.  What if China gets so far doomed that in catastrophe  of going off the cliff changes the money debt model to a whole new ball game??

It just wipes out, writes out debt?

Revolutionary!

Chinese are very clever people.

Good for them.

How is China going to pay for all that credit crushing debt?

They aren't.

Will the world end when China just writes it all off?

That is not playing by the rules!

Write off everything except what they owe Russia for gas to keep their car running.

Produce to meet their own demand.

Invest the profit of production in their own social benefit and advancement.

It is a People's Republic. 

What is the USA?  "We the People?"

Throw the Crooks in Jail?

L Randall Wray is one of my favorite thinkers.

At this link: Forget About Taxes For Redistribution: What to do about Inequality

Wray writes: "I think that real punishment would do one heck of a lot more to reduce income inequality than taxes will ever do. Put a thousand of Wall Street’s “finest” behind bars."


How about what they really fear?

Sentence them and their family to live on a middle class income for the period of sentencing.   They would be divested of the right, benefit and use of all existing property and assets during period of the sentence.  During the sentence middle class income would be fully provided by the government and be the only money that the individual and family may spend under the strict control of a single debit card as the only means of spending.  Receiving or spending money from any other source would be a violation of conditions of sentence resulting in the individual confined to the residence for the remainder of the term.

The sentenced individual or any family member may seek employment from any 501.3c entity but may not be paid for their work.  No outside gifts or "in kind" goods or services may be received.  The individual or family is otherwise entitled to government or community support and services available to all citizens.





A punishment for the family?   If the sentenced individual is in prison that punishes the family by separation.  If the person sentenced to live on a middle class income is married the spouse has the same rights as any other citizen regarding the marriage relationship.

Inhumane punishment?

Cyclic Blog Activity

I don't know where my blog data comes from.  It shows view history but much of that is from sites that just hit it for unknown and unrelated reasons.  However it does roughly mirror my posting frequency.

Pageviews today 4 Pageviews yesterday 7 Pageviews last month 177 Pageviews all time history 6,106 Don't track your own pageviews Always seems to have a little peak in May but most posts are in the fall.  Always been my best time for thinking during my life time. The rest of the year is for doing.  All those page views are quantitative.  Nobody really reads what I write.  That is OK.  I only write to express my thoughts.

Energy and Information Pipe Lines

I like the picture view of the earth from space.  A point where the view of the magnitude of the earth we live on and each have a ground level micro view has moved far enough away from ground level to give us the big picture.  Move far enough away from anything to see the whole thing and then I can see the forest for the trees.

Man made pipelines are physical conduit systems moving something from one place to another where it is needed but at the point of need does not exist in sufficient quantity for end use expenditure.   Real pipelines are easy to see, comprehend and map.  The view from my front window is of a mountain covered with snow that comes to me through a pipeline system that starts at the base of the mountain and end in a stream at my faucet.  Supplemented by deep bore wells here in town.

"Russia And China Do Pipelanistan"is an entry at Naked Capitalism this morning written by Pepe Escobar, commented on by Yves Smith.  It was cross-posted from TomDispatch.  Those two sites are my most admired sources of information with which to build my understanding of the structure and function of the major issues of the world.

Pepe's lead line:

"A specter is haunting Washington, an unnerving vision of a Sino-Russian alliance wedded to an expansive symbiosis of trade and commerce across much of the Eurasian land mass — at the expense of the United States."

An energy pipeline is the skeleton on which so many other connected/associated geo/political/social/economic matters are hung on.  Pepe describes the potential gas deal and then goes on to hang all the related issues on the basic energy pipeline skeleton it would create.  He takes a big picture view of all the related energy pipeline issues just like he was looking down of the earth from space.  His skill in drawing together all of the related issues into an an enlightening view of the big picture and its future is incredible.

Pepe's analysis hits the nail right on the head and presents a picture of the current situation and its projection into the future that is frightfully revealing because it is reasonably and logically has an exceptionally high probability of being correct.

There is another vital pipeline of "energy" distribution in the world and that is the one in which information flows.  The big picture that Pepe describes based on fossil fuel energy connected to all of its various world related issues is a model that also applies as an analogy to information energy and the "pipeline" system through which it flows.  That is a system that is tapped and monitored worldwide by the NSA as a vital matter of national security.  The NSA is our conceptual flip side of our DOD hardware worldwide capability.  DOD protects our national interest and security through its world wide presence divided into geographical commands, including space and its ability to strike militarily anywhere, anytime with sufficient force capability in terms of death, destruction and denial to dominate any conflict situation.  The NSA plays the same role in the world of conceptual global information but with the additional resources to initiate the implementation of DOD military action, para-military action by other government agencies or, one more step removed from traditional military or quasi military action to other agencies of government operating in economic or other critical sectors of power and control dominance.

This blog entry was spawned by a "what if" thought in the back of my mind that was generated by the capability to rapidly restructure conceptual systems and physical system technology that the conceptual information systems are based on.  I touched on that thought in the prior blog entry "Internet Service Provider, Best Service, Cheapest Price".

It is in the realm of science fiction but what if a consortium of major world power players, who are combinations of big government and big business interests just like the USA offered a robust, secure, open system satellite based world wide web internet pipeline structure open to the entire world at cost to users.  There is much talk about balkaniztion of the internet.  This goes in the other direction to a true world-wide utility that would offer a choice to the world of direct ground to satellite back to specific ground end point address that anyone with a capable device could use.  It would be an information pipeline that the NSA could not tap.  Furthermore, it would offer an alternative to all the tier 1 ISPs existing today approaching monopoly control of the fundamental structure of the communication and the associated flow of money it generates to gain even greater control of the communication system.

Looking at it that way the communication system and the thing it conveys begins to look more like a classic pipeline system as well as the banking system and the things that they convey.  The former is a physical system requiring considerable construction time.  The latter is an established institutional world wide system so well entrenched it is resistant to change and has powerful forces to protect it from change to an asset based object oriented system implementation based on "Commons" philosophy of  from a debt based system of capitalism and extraction.

Our fundamental technological communications systems can change quickly as well as the conceptual information structures that it supports.  One of the major impediments to change is squeezing every last dollar of profit out of existing and legacy systems by the big players and the loss of market dominance that they must protect themselves from due to innovation that they do not control.

Governments should fear its people.  If not the people then who should it fear.  Who is a threat to its power?  Used to be the church long ago and with that power they made mutual benefit accommodations.  Now it is economic power centers.  Business and finance.  Mutual benefit accommodations there. Information is the new power.  A power that is controlled by money but rising as a child born of money and control to maturity that equals the power and influence of money.

What we need is a sole source world wide Internet Service Provider.  Satellite based.  Open Source System.  A secure system that cannot be used, managed, manipulated, invaded or threatened by any self interest, special interest power center.  True Net Neutrality.

Somebody generously gives the world the Olympics every 4 years.  What if the any one or any collection of the worlds biggest political powers gave the world an alternative free choice ISP to compete with the tier 1 ISP structure we have today that is a tool of USA for information dominance and control of world affairs.

What if China put up an advanced satellite based ISP for the benefit of its own people.  They are after all the People's Republic.  They have a People's bank.  Once operating they simply scaled it up for world wide use for anyone that wanted to sign on?  Free as a gift to the world?  Would the USA shoot it down as a threat to our security.  Maybe that is what the Space Command is for?  If the USA shot it down and all the rest of the world was using it then what?  The USA attacks the entire world to defend the USA?

Just a flight of fancy but wouldn't it be interesting.  A movie plot?  Free the world through free flow of information then look at it from out in space to see what a wonderful place it is, physically as nature made it, conceptually as we have made it.

We are entering an new age of information colonialism and imperialism.  Unlike the last age that divided and dominated the world and caused conflicts this new age is a new game.

How To Redress The World's Energy Balance.

This link is an excellent analysis.  Comments by Neil deGrasse Tyson.  The way to address it is globally through our information system evolving to become a knowledge system for control of our environment for the common good not for extraction for the benefit of few power centers.

License Plate Reading

In this prior blog post I wrote about License Plate Reading.  The technology and the business.

Bulk License Plate Tracking

Monetizing the LPR Database

License Plate Recognition (LPR) Picking the Low Hanging Fruit

Digital Recognition Network

License Plate Readers

Al of these links to prior related entries in this blog were time clustered because I was interested in LPR at the time and continued to direct my attention to the subject.  There were prior blog entries related to LPR at times it caught my interest.

My interest in LPR continues.  Until I find a better example, automobile license plates are the prime example of visible data on the move, or often time stationary, that is a data element that can be recorded in public and directly related to a vehicle and that vehicle may be related to other fundamental data identification elements.  In the case of vehicle repossession it can be related to the time and place that a vehicle was recorded to by a License Plate Recognition camera.

One intriguing aspect of  LPR applied to the Repo Industry LPR data bases is the consolidation of independent major industry players under an umbrella organization providing single point of entry service to all the data bases owned by all the major industry players.

This prior blog entry link: Digital Recognition Network looks at the consolidation of the various LPR independent businesses to one umbrella of "Associate Partners" under MBSI Capital which offers a single source cloud base entry point for LPR data of all the associates.

A very elegant business model of MBSI Capital to get all the LPR Players together in a software big data consolidation system for the mutual benefit of everyone in the Repo business!

Internet Service Provider - Best Service, Cheapest Price.

"Internet Service Provider"

The Wikipedia link provides a simple explanation"

"An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. Internet service providers may be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise privately owned. "

There are many ways to provide service.  Wireless, cable, etc.  One way to provide it is via "Satellite Internet Service"  with a Wikipedia explanation at the link.

AT&T is rumored  to buy  DirectTV for $50 billion. 

"It would be banking on a “quadruple-play” bundle of mobile, fixed-line, broadband and TV to bring growth back to DirecTV’s business, as well as help convince DirecTV customers to switch to AT&T for mobile, as the bundled packages would likely offer competitive pricing."

Looks like a play by AT&T to corner the market!

ViaSat-1: Wikipedia Link:


"ViaSat-1 is a communications satellite owned by ViaSat. Launched October 19, 2011 aboard a Proton rocket, it holds the Guinness record for the world's highest capacity communications satellite with a total capacity in excess of 140 Gbit/s, more than all the satellites covering North America combined, at the time of its launch.^[2]
ViaSat-1 is capable of two-way communications with small dish antennas at higher speeds and a lower cost-per-bit than any satellite before.^{[citation needed]}
The satellite will be positioned at 115.1 degrees West longitude, with 72 Ka-band spot beams; 63 over the U.S. (Eastern and Western states, Alaska and Hawaii), and nine over Canada.
The Canadian beams are owned by satellite operator Telesat and will be used for the Xplornet broadband service to consumers in rural Canada. The US beams will provide fast Internet access called Exede^SM, ViaSat's satellite Internet service.^[3]
ViaSat-1 is part of a new satellite system architecture created by ViaSat Inc. The objective is to create a better satellite broadband user experience,^[4] making satellite competitive with DSL and wireless broadband alternatives for the first time.<sup>[5]"

"The Russian Space Program gets a $52 Billion Dollar Boost" This link to the Moscow Times story.

Big Bucks.  

Big Plan 

Big Payoff!

Good old AT&T.  Known for monopoly.  Good old American Capitalism.  Known for dominating markets in a "Free Market" system that is not really a free market.  A free market would result in the lowest cost provider of the best service.

The World Wide Web is  a World Wide Web.  Open to any and all that would operate as Internet Service Providers.  

 What is Russia or China state/private enterprise put up a satellite based ISP that offered to anyone in the world access to the Internet to anyone, anywhere at an amazing cheap price and faster speed than anyone else like AT&T could offer.  

An Internet Service Provider operating in a world wide market open to anyone that wants to play in accordance with the cheapest price and best service rules.

I would switch to that provider in a heartbeat.  I would not care in the least that my monthly payment for faster service at half the price went to Russia or China.

But...but...but...What if Russia or China was storing and reading everything that I passed over their ISP system??????   What if they sold their service with a "nuclear power" type open international inspection monitoring system that assured compliance with safe guard that they were not doing something dangerously analogous to building "atom bombs" with surveillance with their ISP system???

I would not only sign up for their service but encourage all my friends to sign up as well.  

Go Russia.  Go China.  Go anybody that would put up a Satellite ISP system that anyone and everyone in the world could subscribe to directly.  They would become the Carlos Slim of the Internet Service Providers.

Let the Free Market worldwide competition for Internet Service Provider begin.

Best fastest at cheapest price wins all. 

Might Russia's investment in a space program be the plan to destroy NSA  internet surveillance? What better way to destroy it than by providing a faster, better, surveillance free ISP to the world?  

Conspiracy Theory?

Elegant Plan?</sup>

Solar Roads

In my life time I have spent much of my time on roads.  The cars I have driven recorded that time in distance.  A million miles?  Even more!  35 years ago I began spending more time on a bike on roads.  Twice across country.  In many other countries.  In my peak bike touring years it was 50,000 miles in three years.  For 20 years I trained for triathlons.  Training on roads per week was maybe 250 miles.

I love roads.  They have taken me on so many adventures to so many places.  Simply, they have been pathways to everywhere I have gone.  I am a guy that believes that an adventure starts when I open the front door.  Beyond my front door it is never far to the road that continues that adventure.

The road starts and stops at my driveway.  Since my driveway is the road I own then I can say that the road starts and stops at my garage.  An amazing thought.  That thought flashed in my mind many years ago.  It happened when I was on the road driving somewhere while my mind took side trips of it own desire.  That thought expanded to the idea that my driveway is connected to a public road system that would take me anywhere and everywhere in the country given enough time.  Virtually, the road system can now be traveled almost everywhere on Google map and Street View.

If I put one foot on my driveway I put a foot on a road system that is connected by roads to everywhere.    It is like the internet in a way where everyone has an internet access point and can go anywhere on the system they wish to go but quicker than driving, riding a bike or walking.  What happened to "all the fun is getting there"  Being there instantly is fun too I guess.  I live on the west coast but going to a webcam of the Atlantic ocean in Bar Harbor, Maine is not like getting there to enjoy the view and the accomplishment after a 5,250 mile bicycle ride!

An amazing thought.  I love roads!

This morning while roaming the internet to see where it would take me just like I roam on roads to do the same I found this link.  Finding things like this is excitement and adventure of the road, paved or electronic:

Solar Roadways  A Youtube video.

That linked to Scott Brusaws TeDx talk about his Solar Roadway concept.  It is at the same time the most fantastic possibility as well as the most fundamental physical transportation network that mankind could build.  Physical transportation not only for vehicle travel but for the path of water on one side of the road and utilities on the other side.  It is the ultimate physical connection and distribution network that humans could build.  A road network to transport us and the principle things that serve us.  On top of that it provides the energy of the sun necessary to power the system.

Scott is turning Science Fiction into fact.  He is doing it with his wife and doing it all himself.   Building by hand it in his own driveway. I cannot think of a bigger system beginning with a smaller prototype that can scale to full implementation.

The test of any system prototype is how well does it scale.  "Mr. Watson.  Come here.  I need you" scaled into a national telephone system.  Much of it physically alongside a road system.  It scaled well over time.  Hardwire migrated to radio wave wireless point to point transmission. 

Scott's concept boggles my mind.  What moves it from fantasy to fact is that it is undoubtedly doable.  Long term output benefit appears to be greater than input cost.  When the nation's economy is producing at less than capacity for want of something to do to utilize that capacity then lets do it simply because we can.  It is worth doing.

I wish I could be around to travel on the roads that his concept creates.

This link is Scott and Julie Brusaw's Solar Road website. 

Solar Roadways: The Prototype  video at the link.

There are other ideas that leverage off the road network.  One of the most recent ones is a state change of matter at the nano level that stores heat energy with a change of state and releases it with a controlled reversal of its state.  Heat could be stored in the road itself and released to do work as required.

A broader way of looking at connectivity, the broadest possible, is to say that the fact that I touch the earth connects me physically to all other people that touch the earth.  Unless, of course they are not touching the earth.  Gee,  that is a "touching" but rather un spectacular thought.  Of course we are connected that way.  What elevates the connectivity of all people and their activity via the road system is that it is a pathway of and for connectivity that we created ourselves, not a natural one that was created for us like the world or its river system that is a natural "water road" system.  Likewise, the internet is a "road system" with a physical and conceptual nature that we created ourselves by utilizing natural resources and the conceptual resources of the human mind.