Software Wasteland

Software Wasteland PDF

Author: Dave McComb

Publisher:

Published: 2018-02-05

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 9781634623162

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Know what's causing application development waste so you can turn the tide. This is the book your Systems Integrator and your Application Software vendor don't want you to read. Enterprise IT (Information Technology) is a $3.8 trillion per year industry worldwide. Most of it is waste. We've grown used to projects costing tens of millions or even billions of dollars, and routinely running over budget and schedule many times over. These overages in both time and money are almost all wasted resources. However, the waste is hard to see, after being so marbled through all the products, processes, and guiding principles. That is what this book is about. We must see, understand, and agree about the problem before we can take coordinated action to address it. The trajectory of this book is as follows: In Chapter 1, we explore how bad the current state is. The three industries that address software waste are discussed, including the legacy software industry, neo-legacy software industry, and legacy modernization industry. Examples of application waste are illustrated from both public and private sectors. In Chapter 2, we explore the economics of the software industry. Although the economic tradeoffs are changing at the speed of Moore's Law, our approaches are not keeping pace. Learn how information systems really behave in terms of actual application development. In Chapter 3 we use "root cause analysis" to reveal the real contributors to this situation, which are dependency, redundancy, complexity, and application centricity. Chapter 4 recounts the many failed attempts we've made in the past to deal with information system complexity, including relational databases, ERP systems, enterprise data modeling, service oriented architectures, and APIs, Agile, data warehouse and business intelligence, outsourcing and offshoring, cloud, Software as a Service (SaaS), data lakes, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. Chapter 5 dismantles seven fallacies that contribute to our remaining stuck. For example, the first fallacy is "We need detailed requirements or we won't get what we want." The quagmire is not affecting all sectors of the economy equally. Chapter 6 looks at how this is playing out in the government and private sectors, large and small companies, and various parts of the IT industry itself. Chapter 7 outlines some action you can take now to begin to extricate yourself, including a detailed assessment and defining metrics for measuring and preventing software development waste.

Cartographic Fictions

Cartographic Fictions PDF

Author: Karen Lynnea Piper

Publisher: Rutgers University Press

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 9780813530734

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Maps are stories as much about us as about the landscape. They reveal changing perceptions of the natural world, as well as conflicts over the acquisition of territories. Cartographic Fictions looks at maps in relation to journals, correspondence, advertisements, and novels by authors such as Joseph Conrad and Michael Ondaatje. In her innovative study, Karen Piper follows the history of cartography through three stages: the establishment of the prime meridian, the development of aerial photography, and the emergence of satellite and computer mapping. Piper follows the cartographer's impulse to "leave the ground" as the desire to escape the racialized or gendered subject. With the distance that the aerial view provided, maps could then be produced "objectively," that is, devoid of "problematic" native interference. Piper attempts to bring back the dialogue of the "native informant," demonstrating how maps have historically constructed or betrayed anxieties about race. The book also attempts to bring back key areas of contact to the map between explorer/native and masculine/feminine definitions of space.

Demystifying OWL for the Enterprise

Demystifying OWL for the Enterprise PDF

Author: Michael Uschold

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2022-05-31

Total Pages: 237

ISBN-13: 3031794826

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After a slow incubation period of nearly 15 years, a large and growing number of organizations now have one or more projects using the Semantic Web stack of technologies. The Web Ontology Language (OWL) is an essential ingredient in this stack, and the need for ontologists is increasing faster than the number and variety of available resources for learning OWL. This is especially true for the primary target audience for this book: modelers who want to build OWL ontologies for practical use in enterprise and government settings. The purpose of this book is to speed up the process of learning and mastering OWL. To that end, the focus is on the 30% of OWL that gets used 90% of the time. Others who may benefit from this book include technically oriented managers, semantic technology developers, undergraduate and post-graduate students, and finally, instructors looking for new ways to explain OWL. The book unfolds in a spiral manner, starting with the core ideas. Each subsequent cycle reinforces and expands on what has been learned in prior cycles and introduces new related ideas. Part 1 is a cook's tour of ontology and OWL, giving an informal overview of what things need to be said to build an ontology, followed by a detailed look at how to say them in OWL. This is illustrated using a healthcare example. Part 1 concludes with an explanation of some foundational ideas about meaning and semantics to prepare the reader for subsequent chapters. Part 2 goes into depth on properties and classes, which are the core of OWL. There are detailed descriptions of the main constructs that you are likely to need in every day modeling, including what inferences are sanctioned. Each is illustrated with real-world examples. Part 3 explains and illustrates how to put OWL into practice, using examples in healthcare, collateral, and financial transactions. A small ontology is described for each, along with some key inferences. Key limitations of OWL are identified, along with possible workarounds. The final chapter gives a variety of practical tips and guidelines to send the reader on their way.

American Wasteland

American Wasteland PDF

Author: Jonathan Bloom

Publisher: Da Capo Lifelong Books

Published: 2011-08-30

Total Pages: 380

ISBN-13: 0738215627

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What Tom Vanderbilt did for traffic and Brian Wansink did for mindless eating, Jonathan Bloom does for food waste. The topic couldn't be timelier: As more people are going hungry while simultaneously more people are morbidly obese, American Wasteland sheds light on the history, culture, and mindset of waste while exploring the parallel eco-friendly and sustainable-food movements. As the era of unprecedented prosperity comes to an end, it's time to reexamine our culture of excess. Working at both a local grocery store and a major fast food chain and volunteering with a food recovery group, Bloom also interviews experts—from Brian Wansink to Alice Waters to Nobel Prize–winning economist Amartya Sen—and digs up not only why and how we waste, but, more importantly, what we can do to change our ways.

Big Tech in Finance

Big Tech in Finance PDF

Author: Igor Pejic

Publisher: Kogan Page Publishers

Published: 2023-05-03

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 1398608971

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With Big Tech's breakthrough into finance with blockchain, it is imperative that finance players understand the ramifications and how they can defend their competitive advantage. Big Tech in Finance provides a cutting edge look at Big Tech's play for domination of the crypto economy, its ramifications and how finance is fighting back. The book analyses the motives behind Big Tech's break into banking and unpicks the strategies behind the use of blockchain, technology interfaces, infrastructure and investments into blockchain unicorns. The book then goes onto review how organizations in finance are countering these threats, with governments and banks driving their own strategies and use of centralized blockchains. Delving into the fight between Big Tech, Big Banking, start-ups, and regulators, Big Tech in Finance analyzes which actors have the best shot at succeeding. It explores the key tools in play, such as smart contracts, digital central bank currencies, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and the metaverse. The book also divulges the geopolitical dimensions underpinning the power struggle and its implications for the industry. Written by an internationally recognized expert on blockchain, the book draws on in-depth interviews with founders, investors, regulators, bankers and blockchain experts to provide valuable insider insights. This will be an essential read for finance and fintech professionals, bankers and investors and anyone else interested in the developments of fintech.

More than a Glitch

More than a Glitch PDF

Author: Meredith Broussard

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2023-03-14

Total Pages: 243

ISBN-13: 0262047659

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When technology reinforces inequality, it’s not just a glitch—it’s a signal that we need to redesign our systems to create a more equitable world. The word “glitch” implies an incidental error, as easy to patch up as it is to identify. But what if racism, sexism, and ableism aren’t just bugs in mostly functional machinery—what if they’re coded into the system itself? In the vein of heavy hitters such as Safiya Umoja Noble, Cathy O’Neil, and Ruha Benjamin, Meredith Broussard demonstrates in More Than a Glitch how neutrality in tech is a myth and why algorithms need to be held accountable. Broussard, a data scientist and one of the few Black female researchers in artificial intelligence, masterfully synthesizes concepts from computer science and sociology. She explores a range of examples: from facial recognition technology trained only to recognize lighter skin tones, to mortgage-approval algorithms that encourage discriminatory lending, to the dangerous feedback loops that arise when medical diagnostic algorithms are trained on insufficiently diverse data. Even when such technologies are designed with good intentions, Broussard shows, fallible humans develop programs that can result in devastating consequences. Broussard argues that the solution isn’t to make omnipresent tech more inclusive, but to root out the algorithms that target certain demographics as “other” to begin with. With sweeping implications for fields ranging from jurisprudence to medicine, the ground-breaking insights of More Than a Glitch are essential reading for anyone invested in building a more equitable future.

Wanderer of the Wasteland

Wanderer of the Wasteland PDF

Author: Zane Grey

Publisher: Pinnacle Books

Published: 2011-02-01

Total Pages: 396

ISBN-13: 0786027843

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He Chose The World's Deadliest Land: To Die, Or To Live Again. . . Adam Laret, big, young and headstrong, ran from Ehrenberg to the banks of the Rio Colorado. He was blindly fleeing his scheming, gambling brother and the woman Guerd stole from him. But Adam's escape wasn't complete until Guerd, in the company of a sheriff, hunted him down. Then Adam committed the ultimate crime. With the mark of Cain upon him--he traveled into the desert to atone for his sins. In a vast, harsh world of heat and beauty, of stealthy creatures and gnawing starvation, Adam faced death and madmen, Indians and strangers who lived where life was impossible. But nothing he did, no act of courage, righteousness, or violence, washed Adam clean. Until he met a woman and made a choice: to fight his way back to civilization, the most dangerous place of all. . . Over 40 Million Copies Of Zane Grey's Novels Sold

The Official Raspberry Pi Handbook 2023

The Official Raspberry Pi Handbook 2023 PDF

Author: The Makers of The MagPi magazine

Publisher: Raspberry Pi Press

Published: 2024-05-07

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 1916868347

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Discover the true potential of Raspberry Pi with the official Handbook 2023. With over 200 pages of amazing projects, fun tutorials, practical guides, and clear reviews, it has everything you need to master Raspberry Pi! Updated for 2023, this guide is packed with information on the latest models, including Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W and Raspberry Pi Pico W. In this 2023 handbook, you'll find: QuickStart guide to setting up your Raspberry Pi computer and using it. Everything you need to know about Raspberry Pi Pico & Pico W. Incredible projects built by the global Raspberry Pi community. Find the right kit and products for your dream builds. Get creating with our comprehensive tutorials and guides. We’ve carefully selected projects to show off the broad range of uses Raspberry Pi and Pico can have, whether you’re just starting out with a little coding, or looking for your next big project. I believe something in here will truly inspire you make something wonderful.