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WASHINGTON — The National Security Agency has implanted software in nearly 100,000 computers around the world that allows the United States to conduct surveillance on those machines and can also create a digital highway for launching cyberattacks. While most of the software is inserted by gaining access to computer networks, the N.S.A. has increasingly made use of a secret technology that enables it to enter and alter data in computers even if they are not connected to the Internet, according to N.S.A. documents, computer experts and American officials.

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Overmanagement by Mr. Andres Agostini

NATGEO   NASA
This is an excerpt from the conclusion section o, “…Overmanagement…,” that discusses some management strategies. To read the entire piece, just click the link at the end of article:

BEGINNING OF EXCERPT.

Question: What other contemporary issues particularly concern you? Do you find signs of
hope or resistance around these issues that, perhaps, you finding heartening?

Well, we can make a long list, including the things we’ve talked about, but it’s also worth
remembering that, hovering over the things we discussed, are two major problems. These
are issues that seriously threaten the possibility of decent human survival. One of them is
the growing threat of environmental catastrophe, which we are racing towards as if we
were determined to fall off a precipice, and the other is the threat of nuclear war, which
has not declined, in fact it’s very serious and in many respects is growing. The second one
we know, at least in principle, how to deal with it. There is a way of significantly reducing
that threat; the methods are not being pursued but we know what they are. In the case of
environmental catastrophe it’s not so clear that there will even be a way to control of
maybe reverse it. Maybe. But, the longer we wait, the more we defer taking measures, the
worse it’s going to be.

It’s quite striking to see that those in the lead of trying to do something about this
catastrophe are what we call “primitive” societies. The first nations in Canada, indigenous
societies in central America, aboriginals in Australia. They’ve been on the forefront of
trying to prevent the disaster that we’re rushing towards. It’s beyond irony that the richest
most powerful countries in the world are racing towards disaster while the so-called
primitive societies are the ones in the forefront of trying to avert it.

END OF EXCERPT.

Please see the full article at http://lnkd.in/bYP2nDC

Will Conley — Slash Gear

Bitcoin miner Milly Bitcoin has done a little citizen letter-writing, and the results should make virtual currency miners breathe a sigh of relief. Milly Bitcoin’s mining company Atlantic City Bitcoin last June wrote to the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) requesting an official administrative ruling on whether ACB must register as a money transfer service. FinCEN has now replied, and the answer is no.

ACB requested the ruling because there has been much confusion as to whether mining — and spending the proceeds — constituted a money transfer service. This may seem a ridiculous question to virtual currency aficionados, but the confusion arose because some businesses dealing in virtual currencies do indeed operate as money transfer services. Mining and spending virtual currency, however, is not a transfer service. Such was the ruling by FinCEN.

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by J.M.P. — The Economist

A GROUP of self-described anarchists, libertarians and Ron Paul supporters fleeing the crumbling world economic system have founded Galt’s Gulch, a community in Chile inspired by Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”—and with an economy based entirely on Bitcoin. Or that’s the goal, anyway.

“Our farm workers and suppliers still want to get paid in pesos,” Ken Johnson, the project’s founder and managing partner, explains. “But Bitcoin as the John Galt coin? Why shouldn’t it be?”

If the world economic system “goes sideways,” as Mr Johnson puts it, residents will retreat to their self-sufficient gated community, where they will enjoy a shooting range, equestrian facilities, and spa and fitness center. The 6,874-hectare site (pictured) also includes a 100-hectare farm, although it is not clear who will pick the lettuce when the world ends.

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for Tech in Asia

Bitcoin

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the country’s central bank, has decided not to intervene on whether businesses can accept Bitcoin as a means of transacting goods and services.

“Whether or not businesses accept bitcoins in exchange for their goods and services is a commercial decision in which MAS does not intervene,” it told Singapore-based Bitcoin trading platform Coin Republic in an email.

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When Newport Beach City Council candidate Michael Glenn thinks of freedom, that includes the freedom to choose how to donate — be it with dollar, peso or bitcoin.

Glenn claims to be the first local politician to accept campaign donations in the esoteric digital currency. He is running against businesswoman Diane Dixon and Harbor Commissioner Joe Stapleton for the Balboa Peninsula’s 1st District council seat.

Glenn’s announcement comes just weeks after customers used bitcoins to pay for a Tesla, and then a Lamborghini, from a Costa Mesa dealership.

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Transleadership! By Mr. Andres Agostini

TRANSLEADERSHIP
This is an excerpt from the conclusion section of, “…Transleadership!…” that discusses some management, leadership and futurism theories and practices and strategies.

To read the entire piece, just click the link at the end of article:

EXCERPT. Ensuing:

(…SUMMATION OF WHAT A TRANSLEADERSHIP LEADER DOES AND IS …)

# 1 – Is An Actionable Statesman.

# 2 – Thoroughly moral and ethical in deed and spontaneously projected example.

# 3 – Happily located and navigating through Century 21.

# 4 – By far, focused on solid and increasing education and perpetual mind expansion, chiefly those acquired by solving truly complex problems systematically.

# 5 – Self-Pedagogue forever. Teaches to self-tech to his / her crew for Life.

# 6 – Leads, Co-Leads, Follows, Co-Follows, Executes, Co-Executes, Builds, Co-Builds, Envisions, Co-Envisions, Paves and Co-Paves Never-Thought-Of Pathways.

# 7 – Intuitive, Counterintuitive, and seamlessly blends both of the above.

# 8 – Takes all – encompassing curiosity as it is operated in real time – beyond known and unknown extremes.

# 9 – Makes every mistake – own or that of the competitor – into his / her won victory.

# 10 – Doesn’t care how fluid and amorphous the limits, contexts and the dynamics of his / her blurred theater of operations are.

# 11 – Can strategize and prevail through many operational frameworks at once without getting bewildered.

# 12 – Challenges every assumption, doctrine and dogma ruthlessly and relentlessly, beginning with his / her own ones.

# 13 – Learns something practical, meaningful, and decisively productive every day.

# 14 – Heightens crew’s sense of urgency and of focus.

# 15 – Re-adapts and re-invents resiliently and effortlessly regardless of whatever constraints and increasing pressures stemming from the frame of reference.

# 16 – Operates multidimensionally and cross-functionally.

# 17 – Constantly and boldly sets pre-conditions to maximize the likelihood of his / her triumphs.

# 18 – Always selects and develops his / her leadership constituency.

# 19 – Creates and applies his / her own – along with that of the team – body of knowledge.

# 20 – Does never ever institute “best practices,” but UNIQUE, premium-graded approaches.

# 21 – Carries on much swifter that “life cycles” intrinsic to products, services, challenges, and complex problem solving.

# 22 – Does not get concerned about his / her adversaries since the uniqueness and ever-upgrading quality of tactics, strategies and stratagems as applied.

# 23 – Harmonizes issues immediately.

# 24 – His / her leadership is always (and robustly so) linked to concrete and unambiguous objective and goals.

# 25 – Always updates his methods, approaches, techniques, tactics, strategies, especially using those that are extraneous to so-called and already disrupted “history.” (Which one, that wrote by winners or that stated by losers or that always failing to have sufficient objectivity?)

# 26 – Continuously learns lessons – and improves those – both from incurred mistakes and from captured successes.

# 27 – Extracts information and knowledge – to be shared and brainstormed with the crew – out of everything done, thought, as well as to be executed regardless of the incumbent.

# 28 – Wins only based on merit, principle, legitimacy and lawfulness.

# 29 – Strategizes the granularity of detail of everything. There is no such a thing as a leader that is not a strategist and visionary.

# 30 – Embraces leading-edge (even weird) science and its stemming technological derivatives immediately.

# 31 – Enjoys phenomena and prevails as he / she navigates through said phenomena.

# 32 – Is never commonsensical and always challenging long-held assumptions as he / she institutes the most unorthodox and exuberant novel practices (lavishly so).

# 33 – De-tools, tools, re-tools the amplification of the individual and collective intelligence within his / her crew.

# 34 – Instills how to operate autonomously and jointly – in pursuit of the same goals and objectives – to his / her followers and co-leaders.

# 35 – Learns from his / her mistakes, but empathizes to learn also from the mistakes of others.

# 36 – Fluidly shares experience and practical knowledge across every incumbent in the crew.

# 37 – Only thinks and performs a la unthinkable thinking.

# 38 – Disrupt the boundaries of unthinkable thinking, always going beyond such boundaries.

# 39 – Transforms new problems and old problems into actionable breakthrough opportunities.

# 40 – In his / her case and exercising this type of leadership, strongly and coherently insists on and applies three aspects: CIVILITY, CIVILITY, CIVILITY!

# 41 – Before chaos, he / she instills more and more chaos – of greater magnitude, scale and speed – to level off and outsmart the frame of reference targeted.

# 42 – Drives OPS with directness and / or indirectness, as well as with the loose/control hybridization mode.

# 43 – Shares of defined values

# 44 – Elicits conceptions of practiced futures to deal with and countermeasure way in advance.

# 45 – Fuses technology innovation with business strategy as a tool for competitive advantage.

# 46 – Conceives early and distinguishes it and exploits it strategic surprises attributable to competitors.

# 47 – Ascertains that there is not a single stone left unturned.

END OF EXCERPT.

Please see the entire presentation at http://lnkd.in/dP2PmCP

SAN FRANCISCO — BigDog, Cheetah, WildCat and Atlas have joined Google’s growing robot menagerie.

Google confirmed on Friday that it had completed the acquisition of Boston Dynamics, an engineering company that has designed mobile research robots for the Pentagon. The company, based in Waltham, Mass., has gained an international reputation for machines that walk with an uncanny sense of balance and even — cheetahlike — run faster than the fastest humans.

It is the eighth robotics company that Google has acquired in the last half-year. Executives at the Internet giant are circumspect about what exactly they plan to do with their robot collection. But Boston Dynamics and its animal kingdom-themed machines bring significant cachet to Google’s robotic efforts, which are being led by Andy Rubin, the Google executive who spearheaded the development of Android, the world’s most widely used smartphone software.

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The Future of Management Wargaming, Now! By Mr. Andres Agostini

This is an excerpt from the conclusion section of, “…The Future of Management Wargaming , Now…!” that discusses some management theories and practices. To read the entire piece, just click the link at the end of article:

In addition to being aware and adaptable and resilient before the driving forces reshaping the current present and the as-of-now future, there are some extra management suggestions that I concurrently practice:

a) “…human knowledge is doubling every ten years [as per the 1998 standards]…”

b) "...computer power is doubling every eighteen months. the internet is doubling every year. the number of dna sequences we can analyze is doubling every two years…”

c) “…beginning with the amount of knowledge in the known world at the time of Christ, studies have estimated that the first doubling of that knowledge took place about 1700 A.D. the second doubling occurred around the year 1900. it is estimated today that the world’s knowledge base will double again by 2010 and again after that by 2013…”

d) “…knowledge is doubling by every fourteen months…”

e) “…more than the doubling of computational power [is taking place] every year…”