This afternoon I completed a second step in an interesting exercise.  A couple of months ago, after reading about various alternative currencies, such as BitCoin, I signed up for an account with Ripple.com  which was born of an idea to use a decentralized currency system, base on the Ripple protocol for a payment network:

In its developed form, the Ripple network is intended to be a peer-to-peer distributed social network service with a monetary honour system based on trust that already exists between people in real-world social networks; this form is financial capital backed completely by social capital. 

Ripple uses the Ripple currency, XRP (sometimes called ripples).

I don’t understand the potential uses or the pros and cons of such a network, but I thought it would be interesting to see how they handled security and identity.

As of this afternoon, I now have a Ripple wallet at Ripple.com, and an account at SnapSwap, a new US-based Ripple gateway, that is linked to a personal bank account.  I have 2,500 Ripples in my wallet, placed there as rewards for signing up with Ripple.com and SnapSwap.  I think at the current exchange rate, all those Ripples are worth about USD $10. 

Somehow in this system, I am supposed to be able to exchange dollars for ripples and vise versa, but I haven’t figured out why I would want to.  Any ideas?

A link to an uplifting post by Tony Robbins caught my eye this morning – a post about Identity, but not about the digital type – about how we define ourselves.  I was inspired by these words from the post, “The Meaning of Life: Finding your True Identity:”

People have enormous capabilities beyond what’s thought to be possible. The power to tap into our tremendous potential comes from our identity: how we define ourselves, and what believe we can achieve.

Six “Key Principles of Identity” are proposed:

1. Identity is the most important power that determines our actions.
2. Once we know who we are, we must learn to be ourselves.
3. Sometimes, people maintain the illusion that their behavior decides who they really are.
4. When you take responsibility, you restore your identity.
5. The fastest way to expand our identity is to do something that’s inconsistent with our current self-image.
6. Our personal identities are in a constant state of evolution.

Knowing who I am is foundational for my life. I really believe that.

The Jeep was born on August 1, 1941 – 72 years ago today.  In honor of that happy historical event, here is a little video, “Autobiography of a Jeep,” produced in 1943 by United Films for the United States Office of War Information.

Today I had a very thought provoking Twitter exchange.  It started when I read the article, “GE just invented the first ‘internet of things’ device you’ll actually want to own.” Rather than tweeting the title of that article, I chose to quote a phrase deep in the article:

“pretty soon just about everything we own will have some degree of self-awareness” http://t.co/ZtySg70wMf #IoT

Quite quickly, I received two responses, which were really from the same person. Paul Roberts, tweeting both from his personal account @paulfroberts and his professional account @securityledger, responded: 

@mgd “everything we own” but nobody we know, unfortunately! 😉

Could it be that as we instrument our lives more completely in order to connect more efficiently with THINGS, we lose touch with PEOPLE we know?

It is ironic that rather than having this discussion face to face with anyone I know, I am sequestered in my home office communicating virtually with folks in cyberspace.  Am I really IN TOUCH more, or progressively OUT OF TOUCH?

Somehow, I believe we can achieve balance in all of this – seeking to capture the good in IoT and virtual connections while not abandoning the real-world relationships we hold dear.

 

Little did I realize when I was growing up and falling in love with photography and electronics that camera and telephone technologies would converge. Now my kids have grown up taking that convergence for granted. Poor Ziggy is trapped in the past with my parents and others who still resist the inevitable.

For all you photographers out there, how is this for a great place to be taking photos? Today’s NASA photo of the day:

NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy, Expedition 36 flight engineer, uses a digital still camera during a session of extravehicular activity (EVA) as work continues on the International Space Station.

Parades, flags, patriotism, freedom … Happy Fourth of July!  To all who serve or have served to establish and protect our great nation and the freedoms we enjoy, please accept my heartfelt thanks!

Did you ever wonder who the first blogger was?  Now, thanks to Frank & Ernest, we know …

Ironically, within minutes this evening, I followed two cloud computing links - BC Comics’ definition and a more serious, post, Top 10 List for Success in the Cloud, by Octave Orgeron.  With all due respect to Octave, I propose a Top 10 List for successful cloud computing, using Wiley’s definition (following the comic strip).

Here is my top 10 list for successful cloud computing:

10. The seat in front of you is far enough away so you can actually lower the tray and open your laptop

9.  The flight attendant doesn’t spill water on your keyboard 

8.  You remembered to charge your laptop before leaving the office

7.  You didn’t forget the new password you set this morning

6.  The inflight WiFi connection actually works

5.  Your credit card has enough headroom to actually pay for inflight WiFi

4.  The person in the seat next to you stops talking long enough for you to do some actual computing

3.  The person in the seat next to you isn’t employed by your biggest competitor

2.  You don’t get motion sick while trying to focus on your spreadsheet during turbulence

1.  You resist the urge to give up and watch a movie instead

 

What a view of the earth he has!  

Inside the Cupola, NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy, an Expedition 36 flight engineer, uses a 400mm lens on a digital still camera to photograph a target of opportunity on Earth some 250 miles below him and the International Space Station. Cassidy has been aboard the orbital outpost since late March and will continue his stay into September.