I have been wondering this as well. I cannot imagine having this be autoupdated without review from a centralized database is a good idea. This is a process that needs to be frangible and have some friction in it.
In this day and age, GPS mapping tools have major implications for societal function, safety, economics, national security, healthcare, etc. I'm struggling to think of an industry where a sudden absence/subtle changes of named GPS mapping data would not have an effect.
If everyone relied on the same data base which could push changes to the map in the pocket of every resident of a nation that would be the first thing I would think to hack. Probably easier than actually jamming or spoofing GPS/GNSS over a huge area.
There are thousands of small street changes across the country each day. New subdivisions, road expansions, lane changes, new traffic lights. Of course the vast majority should be auto-updated without manual review, what would a person add to the process? The public database is the system of record in the first place.
A quick check says this contract has been in place since 2020.
The internet security practices I experienced when working with the DOD in a prior life were…interesting?
Outside of the classified realm, there seemed to be little to no on the ground understanding of the Internet. Many things where internet connected that shouldn’t be or weren’t that should. I was involved in one contract where we had to demonstrate the ability to remotely access and control a system (to satisfy the system’s owner) as well as demonstrate that the system could not be remotely accessed via the internet (to satisfy the base IT folks). The solution was a hotspot kept in a lock box…that I doubt was ever locked after we left because it was constantly attached to our internal monitoring network despite our pleas.
The diet in Guam is already heavily dependent on shelf stable foods. I know this from personal experience but theres a surprising (to me) amount of research on it as well (c.v., https://www.guampedia.com/health-consequences-of-modern-diet...). However, it is worth noting that food on a military installation =/= food nearby, for many obvious and non obsvious reasons.
I've become convinced that AI models have no concept of 'white space' or cognitive load which is something technically minded folks have already seemed to underappreciate so it is amplified in situations like this.
To call it out again...
(1) almost no white space - every square inch is communicating information
(2) no clear hierarchy - almost in search of minimizing white space and presenting maximum rather tham maximally useful information.
(3) no consistency of any taxonomy for presenting information across the page
(4) no guidelines or legend for interpreting what any of the visual cues (color, size, etc.) mean.
There is a huge push in engineering at least to try and introduce better communications skills into curricula. It is hard in part because students are very much of the mindset that information and meaning is inherently shared and structuring a narrative or story is to whit unnecessary. This is in part because so much of their education is focused on the bulk transfer of facts and an assumption they will stitch information together into knowledge.
Looking at this without consideration for two factors (number of applicants and the number of applications per applicant) is borderline malpractice.
I can’t pull older numbers on my phone at the moment but in the last 12 years the number of applications to colleges (applicants*applications) has risen 50%.
So correct for the reality that…
1) that immediately skews your denominator and changes your percentages.
2) the upper middle class students are the most likely to apply to the most schools (because they can and don’t have the other paths)
3) more and more marginal students who previously would not have gone to college are getting encouraged to apply.
I know this is probably a /s but in the UK you apply through a service called UCAS not directly to the university, and UCAS only allow you to apply to 5 universities.
Having dealt with this with a couple of family members, set it a similar system for my spouse and I, and also been tech support for numerous friends doing somethign similar I'll provide a couple notes
* The biggest product market fit note to me is that this misunderstands the information access challenge. My experience has been that you are on 'step 2' of the information - organizing it and accessing it. Step 1 is getting the information out of the person, all of it, correctly, willingly. These are hard conversations and structuring them is less of a challenge than the emotional piece.
* In the zero trust/everything is multifactor age what I have really found is that access to cell phone and email are the most critical. I don't see where this prioritizes those...because I won't be able to login to anything of (say) my mom's from my laptop until I have those two things to verify identity.
* I can't quite tell whether you are pitching this at 'healthy people to set this up for the future' (a nonstarter because of annual subscription cost) or 'healthy person helping sick family member' (they have enough going on that starting using a new piece of software is an unsustainable cognitive load delta no matter the ease).
Big picture...what I recommend for friends and family is a password manager with a deadmans switch someone else (your estate personal rep) can trigger. That, plus good estate planning is basically sufficient. You should (and almost always can) have some document in there listing major accounts nad bills that is mostly up to date. This stuff doesn't have to be perfect it just needs to be good enough because no matter why you are activating it perfect is not going to be an option or even helpful.
100% agree the first step is discovering what exists. Our goal is to make that discovery less intimidating by automating as much discovery as possible.
When a user connects their email address we automatically search for 70 categories of critical documents & bills (ex: property tax, homeowners insurance, life insurance, etc...) so all they have to do is click yes to confirm instead of trying to remember what's important and where it's stored.
The next step is series of simple yes/no questions to help folks remember what critical documents/contacts exist.
If you have other suggestions to make the process less stressful, we definitely want to hear them.
I think this is the larger point that is easy to miss.
Thinking about this as slashing science or making it more efficient or short sighted or innovative is all a distraction.
It’s just another opportunity to give money to the friends of those in government and take money from those you don’t. Say want you want about how it used to be, but this and the new rules around “political oversight” are just corruption and grift that are either wearing a mask of ideology or efficiency based on your political stance
Worth noting this is pretty standard university PR. It is written with author involvement so it’s likely technically correct but it is aimed at getting it picked up so it often makes it sound flowery and contains multiple descriptions of generally the same thing with different analogies or simplifications that anyone writing an article from this can parrot easily.
In this day and age, GPS mapping tools have major implications for societal function, safety, economics, national security, healthcare, etc. I'm struggling to think of an industry where a sudden absence/subtle changes of named GPS mapping data would not have an effect.
If everyone relied on the same data base which could push changes to the map in the pocket of every resident of a nation that would be the first thing I would think to hack. Probably easier than actually jamming or spoofing GPS/GNSS over a huge area.
reply