And finally, some tasty news chum stew, which has been simmering in the bookmarks for a couple of weeks:
- DoD and Silicon Valley. My wife brought my attention to this article, which explores how the Defense Department is working with Silicon Valley to get cutting edge technology into defense systems. For those who don’t know the DOD and its acquisition processes (which grind exceedingly slow), this is very novel. Silicon Valley brings technology out faster than the DOD can get past an MDD and RFP, so it is really a new way for the DOD.
- Boarding Passes. This hit the news last week, but is worth highlighting. We all have typically thrown away those boarding passes we print, because they don’t contain anything useful. So we thought. Brian Krebs did some exploration, and discovered that you might want to save the boarding pass for shredding instead. There’s information on there that is likely sensitive.
- Trading Spaces. One of my favorite shows of the early 2000s was Trading Space on TLC. Near the end, it started to go off the rails and quickly disappeared. Here’s a great explanation of the rise and fall of Trading Spaces. I still believe it could be brought back in these tight economic times — they just need to keep it at its original concept, and not allow Doug or Hildy anywhere near it.
- Preparing for El Niño. We’ve all been hearing that this winter will be something Southern California needs: a wet one. Here are 28 things that you should be doing to prepare now for the wet winter. I do know I need to out and clean the gutters. All of this is good advice.
- CSUN Resurgent. Every time I drive along Reseda, I think how Northridge is reshaping Reseda to be the college town that will complete the transformation of CSUN. In the past 10 years, the transformation of CSUN has been remarkable, and the Daily News has a good exploration of it. CSUN has gone from being just lil’ old Valley State to a full university, with top notch nationally recognized programs and a larger residential contingent. In many ways, I think it — together with the Cal Polys — are the gems of the Cal State system. I think it could almost be another UC, but I believe there is now a law (but I can’t find the reference) that schools in the CSU system cannot convert to UCs. (Both UCLA and UCSB are former CalStates)
