Stephen E. Arnold: IBM’s Watch Goes Shopping — Big Data Heuristics Hit a New Low

IBM Watson Apps Due Next Year December 22, 2013 To what pressing issue is IBM now applying Watson’s superior (artificial) intellect? Why, to shopping, of course. Business Insider reports, “IBM’s Jeopardy-Winning Supercomputer Will Power a ‘Cognitive, Expert Personal Shopper’ App Next Year.” Writer Dylan Love was especially taken by one app on the horizon from …

SmartPlanet: 4% Completion Rate for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC)

Only four percent complete massive open online courses: setback or growing pains? Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have relatively few active users, and  user engagement falls off dramatically, especially after the first one to two weeks weeks of a course. Ultimately, only a handful of users persist to the course end. That’s the gist of …

Mini-Me: Cognitive Dissonance at NSA + NSA High Crimes RECAP + Integrity Remediation

Huh? Do You Trust the Washington Post‘s Sources on Morale at the NSA? Former officials insist that employees are upset because President Obama hasn’t visited to show his support. Conor Friedersdorf Reuters via The Atlantic, Dec 10 2013, 8:20 AM ET A strange Washington Post story gives readers the impression that morale is low at …

Yale The Politic: The Intelligence Gathering Conundrum + Toxic Secrecy RECAP

SHORT URL This Post: http://tinyurl.com/Steele4Yale The Politic Introducing The Yale Undergraduate Journal of Politics The Intelligence Gathering Conundrum As distrust of the U.S. abounds, reliable intelligence is more difficult to procure. By Zachary Mohriing “Snowden and Manning fucked us. Who would want to work with us?” asked one former CIA officer.  Edward Snowden and Bradley …

Stephen Aftergood: Defense Warning Network

THE DEFENSE WARNING NETWORK The structure and functions of the Defense Warning Network were outlined in a new directive issued yesterday by the Department of Defense. The mission of the Defense Warning Network is to provide notice “of potential threats posed by adversaries, political and economic instability, failed or failing states, and any other emerging …

Berto Jongman: Jeffrey Carr on Evaluating Sources

Digital Dao Evolving Hostilities in the Global Cyber Commons Sunday, November 24, 2013 In OSINT, All Sources Aren’t Created Equal “In evaluating open-source documents, collectors and analysts must be careful to determine the origin of the document and the possibilities of inherent biases contained within the document.” – FM2-22.3: Human Intelligence Collector Operations, p. I-10 …

Marcus Aurelius: SSI Monograph on Known Unknowns – Unconventional “Strategic Shocks” in Defense Strategy Development

Ladies and Gentlemen: You may want to check out US Army War College Strategic Studies Institute paper at link below and attached: Read with a view to some of the strange things that have been ascribed to FEMA. KNOWN UNKNOWNS: UNCONVENTIONAL “STRATEGIC SHOCKS”IN DEFENSE STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT Nathan Freier Strategic Studies Institute, November 2008 EXTRACTS: