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As Hurricane Season Approaches, IBM and The Weather Company Collaborate on Emergency Management for Cities

As the 2015 Atlantic hurricane season gets underway, communities in severe weather-prone regions are anxiously tracking pending storms and working to create effective disaster response plans. IBM, through its strategic alliance with The Weather Company and its global B2B division WSI, today announced a new emergency management solution that features sophisticated analytics and the use of real-time weather data to help communities predict and plan for natural disasters far more accurately and deploy the right resources in advance.




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ENGIE joins forces with IBM to deploy smarter cities solutions and improve the quality of life for citizens

ENGIE, a global leader in energy transition, today announced a new initiative with IBM. This nonexclusive, technological and commercial alliance is designed to improve the management of cities by looking at patterns, event correlation, anomaly detection and real-time data across all parts of cities.




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New Root Cause Analysis Group on LinkedIn

There are several discussion groups on LinkedIn dedicated to Root Cause Analysis in one way or another. I follow a couple of them, but the one I like the most has a serious problem. So, being the dynamic (ha) and proactive (haha) person that I am, I created a new one. This new LinkedIn group […]




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Systems Thinking, Complexity, and Root Cause

I'm getting so very tired of safety/accident researchers claiming that root cause analysis is an invalid, blame-focused practice that ignores systems and complexity. Most root cause investigators that I know are pretty well oriented towards process, organization, and system issues as the fundamental sources underlying problems and accidents... and even some of our simplest analysis […]




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Followup… System Focused Root Cause Analysis of Complexity

My previous post about root causes in complex systems, in retrospect, looks a little bit like a rant. That doesn't bother me too much, really... but I wish I had included the following info: it is one way to go about resolving the mess that complex systems can make of your root cause analysis. Basically, when […]




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Root Cause Analysis of Microsoft Azure Service Interruption

Microsoft recently experienced a significant interruption of their Azure cloud service. Since a decent amount of data was available for this incident, I decided to do a partial root cause analysis. All of my source data came from Microsoft's official Azure blog post on 2014-Nov-24. I did this primarily to create a sample analysis that […]




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Top 5 Reasons for Failed Root Cause Analysis

Root cause analysis is one of the best ways to solve difficult or significant problems, but sometimes, root cause analysis efforts fail because the corrective actions weren't effective. If the original problem happens again, or the needed improvements haven't materialized, or a new problem arises because of the corrective actions, you need to figure out what happened […]




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Why Train? Why eLearning?

eLearning, to me, seems like an exciting new field that has barely been tapped and which has a wide open future. However, no matter how exciting and universal it seems, it is really a subset of training, instruction, education, etc. So, before I really embark on this adventure in eLearning, maybe I should think about […]




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Freeing myself to write…

I've hosted Google Ads on this website for over 10 years, but I've decided to remove them. I realized that having the ads, and wanting to maximize the amount of revenue they could generate, was keeping me from writing as much I'd like. With the ads, I felt that I had to be careful not […]




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The Weather Company, an IBM Business, to Integrate Global Flight Tracking Data from FlightAware

The Weather Company, an IBM Business announced today that it is enhancing its global flight operations solution WSI Fusion, with live flight tracking data from FlightAware. WSI Fusion provides early insight into changing flight, airport and airspace conditions, enabling aviation providers to carefully plan and track flights, optimize operations and reduce the impacts of disruptive events. With the addition of FlightAware’s data, including its private network of over 12,000 Automatic Dependent Surveillance – Broadcast (ADS-B) ground stations in over 160 countries, WSI Fusion customers will have access to enhanced flight following capabilities worldwide.



  • Travel & Transportation

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Is Hope Good or Bad? You decide.

Why does hope matter? Why is it important? Because life is hard and often painful. Without hope, it’s immensely more difficult to envision a better future, one worth living for. Hope lets us set meaningful goals that motivate us to move forward, to learn and grow, and to realize our full potential.




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IBM Gets High Marks on CRN’s 2017 Annual Report Card for Analytics and Storage

IBM announced today that it has been recognized as the winner in the Business Analytics category and the Enterprise Network Storage sub-category in CRN’s 2017 Annual Report Card (ARC) awards program. The Annual Report Card summarizes results from a comprehensive survey that details solution provider satisfaction across product innovation, support and partnership for the hardware, services and software vendors they team up with. The vendors with the highest ratings are named to the prestigious Annual Report Card list of winners and celebrated as best-in-class by their partners. The results also provide the IT vendor community with valuable feedback—directly from their solution providers—that can be used to refine product offerings, enhance support offerings and improve communication with partners.




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As Fifth Anniversary of Superstorm Sandy Approaches, U.S. Utility Companies Still Feel Underprepared for Weather-Related Outages

Each year, weather-related power outages cost the U.S. economy as much as $33 billion a year. Additionally, one severe weather event has the potential to impact the daily lives and routines of millions of people. As 2017 marks the fifth anniversary of Superstorm Sandy, The Weather Company, an IBM Business (NYSE: IBM) and Zpryme are releasing the results of a survey that found that U.S. utility companies still feel underprepared for weather-related outages and that their reactive approach to outage prediction leads to lost time and resources.




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IBM & Ponemon Institute: Cost of a Data Breach Dropped 10 Percent Globally in 2017 Study

IBM Security today announced the results of a global study exploring the implications and effects of data breaches on today’s businesses. Sponsored by IBM Security and conducted by Ponemon Institute, the study found that the average cost of a data breach is $3.62 million globally , a 10 percent decline from 2016 results. This is the first time since the global study was created that there has been an overall decrease in the cost. According to the study, these data breaches cost companies $141 per lost or stolen record on average




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IBM X-Force Red Launches New Services for Automotive Industry and IoT

IBM Security today announced the launch of two new security testing practice areas focused on automotive security and the Internet of Things (IoT). The new services will be delivered via an elite team of IBM X-Force Red researchers focused on testing backend processes, apps and physical hardware used to control access and management of smart systems.




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IBM, Packet Clearing House and Global Cyber Alliance Collaborate to Protect Businesses and Consumers from Internet Threats

IBM Security, Packet Clearing House (PCH) and The Global Cyber Alliance (GCA) today launched a free service designed to give consumers and businesses added privacy and security protection as they access the internet. The new Quad9 Domain Name System (DNS) service helps protect users from accessing millions of malicious internet sites known to steal personal information, infect users with ransomware and malware, or conduct fraudulent activity.




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What Day Is It?

Monday? Tuesday? Judgment Day? A handy PSA from Cleveland to help you keep track of the days. Plus, Hadley and Bolt’s war of words, Trump gets nasty with the media, and the mystery of the ABC’s missing IPA audio.




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Ep 12 - Karl’s hypocrisy

Karl Stefanovic gets cosy with the Daily Mail despite years of scorn, ridicule and criticism.




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Ep 12 - Hydroxychloroquine disappoints

Disappointing results for malaria drug hydroxychloroquine which has been favoured by Donald Trump and some in the media as a possible treatment for coronavirus.




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Ep 13 - Virus lab theory

Where did COVID-19 come from? And is the Wuhan Institute of Virology to blame?




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Daily Squiggly Sudoku: Sat 9-May-2020




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Daily Sudoku for Kids: Sat 9-May-2020




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Daily Monster Sudoku: Sat 9-May-2020




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Daily Sudoku: Sat 9-May-2020




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How to Cook Beans that are Tender, Creamy, and Nearly Perfect

The best way I know to cook beans, and the one I always return to. A version of the much-loved Tuscan bean recipe - fagioli al fiasco. Traditionally, beans were baked overnight in a Chianti bottle placed near the embers of that night's fire. While not exactly authentic (no fire here), I do a riff on the general idea, using a low-temperature oven and enamel-lined pot.

Continue reading How to Cook Beans that are Tender, Creamy, and Nearly Perfect on 101 Cookbooks



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IBM, NVIDIA, Stone Ridge Technology Set Record in High Performance Computing in Oil & Gas

IBM and Stone Ridge Technology today announced a performance milestone in reservoir simulation designed to help improve efficiency and lower the cost of production. Working with NVIDIA, the companies shattered previous published results using one-tenth the power and 1/100th of the space. The news demonstrates the ability of NVIDIA GPUs to simulate one billion cell models in a fraction of the published time, while delivering 10x the performance and efficiency than legacy CPU codes.




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IBM and Nutanix Launch Hyperconverged Initiative to bring Enterprises into the Cognitive Era

IBM and Nutanix today announced a multi-year initiative to bring new workloads to hyperconverged deployments.




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Sci-Tech Daresbury and IBM Research Collaborative Campus at Hartree Centre Receives Royal Seal of Approval

Sci-Tech Daresbury and IBM today announced the opening of a new building for the collaborative research facility at The Hartree Centre in Daresbury. The building, opened by the Duke of York, is the latest evolution of the long-running collaboration between Sci-Tech Daresbury and IBM.




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The Weather Company, an IBM Business, and UCAR Collaborate to Advance Weather Science Globally Through New Global Model Powered by IBM Supercomputing

At the International Supercomputing Conference in Frankfurt, The Weather Company, an IBM Business, today announced a plan to help improve weather prediction globally via a new collaboration with the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), a federally funded research and development center for the atmosphere and Earth’s geospace systems.




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IBM Power Systems Streamlines CipherHealth Platform for End to End Patient Care

IBM today announced that CipherHealth, a SaaS healthcare provider, has deployed IBM Power Systems™ infrastructure to run its technology platform that helps healthcare providers reduce re-admissions and improve the patient experience by providing effective patient engagement from pre-hospitalization through to post-discharge. The move to the new infrastructure has halved CipherHealth’s monthly infrastructure costs, and improved its data processing times by nearly 90 percent.




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Linux on IBM Power Systems Beats Market Growth Performance by 3X

IBM today announced that according to results from International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker®(June, 2017) IBM has achieved market growth by 3x compared with the total Linux server market which grew at +6 percent. The improved performance are the result of success across IBM Power Systems including IBM’s OpenPOWER LC servers and IBM Power Systems running SAP HANA as well as the OpenPOWER-Ready servers developed through the OpenPOWER Foundation.




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IBM Leads Country’s First Nanotechnology Lab in the Brazilian IT industry

IBM announced today a new experimental laboratory for nanotechnology research in Brazil. The NanoLab is part of a $4M investment within the recently upgraded IBM Research-Brazil lab in Rio de Janeiro and will focus on projects related to research in Oil & Gas, Agriculture and Health across Latin America.



  • IBM Watson Internet of Things (IoT)

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IBM Watson and Sesame Workshop Introduce Intelligent Play and Learning Platform on IBM Cloud

IBM and Sesame Workshop today announced that Georgia’s Gwinnett County Public Schools, one of the nation’s top urban school districts, has completed an initial pilot of the industry’s first cognitive vocabulary learning app, built on the IBM and Sesame intelligent play and learning platform. The new platform, powered by IBM Cloud, enables an ecosystem of software developers, researchers, educational toy companies, and educators to tap IBM Watson cognitive capabilities and Sesame Workshop’s early childhood expertise to build engaging experiences to help advance children’s education and learning. The cognitive vocabulary app is one of the first of many cognitive apps, games, and educational toys that will be built over time on this new platform, as a result of the two companies’ collaboration announced last year.



  • IBM Watson Internet of Things (IoT)

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Army Re-Ups with IBM for $135 Million in Cloud Services

IBM announced today that the U.S. Army’s Logistics Support Activity awarded IBM a contract to continue providing cloud services, software development and cognitive computing, constituting the technical infrastructure for one of the U.S. federal government’s biggest logistics systems.



  • IBM Watson Internet of Things (IoT)

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IBM and MTN Help Protect Endangered African Rhinos with Internet of Things Technology

IBM MTN, a leading African telecommunications provider, Wageningen University (WU) in the Netherlands and Prodapt, today announced they are harnessing IBM Internet of Things (IoT) technology as part of the MTN Connected Wildlife Solution. The solution will help predict threats and combat the poaching of endangered rhinos at Welgevonden Game Reserve in South Africa, with the intent to expand the solution to other reserves in future.



  • IBM Watson Internet of Things (IoT)

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IBM and SAP to Offer New Co-Created Industry Solution for Retail and Consumer Packaged Goods Industries

IBM and SAP SE have teamed up to provide a co-innovated solution for the retail and consumer packaged goods industries to help both increase profitability and improve the consumer experience.




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IBM Pioneers New Approach to Simulate Chemistry with Quantum Computing

IBM scientists have developed a new approach to simulate molecules on a quantum computer that may one day help revolutionize chemistry and materials science. The scientists successfully used a seven-qubit quantum processor to address the molecular structure problem for beryllium hydride (BeH2) – the largest molecule simulated on a quantum computer to date. The results demonstrate a path of exploration for near-term quantum systems to enhance our understanding of complex chemical reactions that could lead to practical applications.




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IBM Research and UC San Diego Collaborate to Advance the Use of Artificial Intelligence for Healthy Living

IBM and the University of California San Diego have announced a multi-year project to enhance quality of life and independence for aging populations through the new Artificial Intelligence for Healthy Living Center (AIHL), located on the campus of UC San Diego. The groundbreaking center will bring together the technology, artificial intelligence and life sciences knowledge of IBM and UC San Diego to promote critical research and applications in two thematic areas: Healthy Aging and the Human Microbiome.




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IBM Named a Leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Data Center Backup and Recovery Solutions

IBM has been recognized as a storage software Leader in the 2017 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Data Center Backup and Recovery Solutions1. In its Magic Quadrants’, Gartner analysts evaluate technology and solutions with an ‘Ability to Execute’ and a ‘Completeness of Vision’.




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IBM Announces New Capabilities to Help On-Premises Customers Effectively Manage Compliance Data with Object Storage

IBM today announced two significant milestones in making the on-premises IBM Cloud Object Storage System much more accessible for customers with new compliance-enabled vaults and concentrated dispersal mode capabilities.




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The Weather Company and PRISA Noticias Collaborate To Offer Comprehensive Weather News and Information across Spanish-Language Media

The Weather Company, an IBM Business, and PRISA Noticias, one of the world’s leading Spanish-language media groups and owner of EL PAÍS newspaper, announced today a collaboration to combine the most accurate forecasts with one of the Spanish-speaking world’s largest media groups. The Weather Company will provide in-depth weather data and forecasts, as well as tailored content across PRISA properties. In turn, PRISA Noticias will provide locally relevant articles, photos and video content within the Spanish versions of The Weather Channel app and website (weather.com). The collaboration will also enable local marketers to access advanced data-driven advertising solutions from IBM Watson Advertising (formerly The Weather Company’s ad sales business) across both companies’ properties.




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Walmart, JD.com, IBM and Tsinghua University Launch a Blockchain Food Safety Alliance in China

Walmart, JD.com, IBM, and Tsinghua University National Engineering Laboratory for E-Commerce Technologies announced today they will work together in a Blockchain Food Safety Alliance that will kick off with a collaboration designed to enhance food tracking, traceability and safety in China, to achieve greater transparency across the food supply chain.




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IBM Recognized as a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Mobility Management Suites

IBM Security today announced it has been positioned by Gartner, Inc. as a Leader for the sixth consecutive year in the Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Mobility Management Suites1 for its ability to execute and completeness of vision.




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IBM and West Virginia University’s Center for Disability Inclusion Unveil Mobile Workplace Accommodation Case Management App

IBM and West Virginia University’s Center for Disability Inclusion (CDI) today announced they are developing a first generation mobile workplace accommodation case management app to help U.S. businesses create inclusive workplaces for employees with disabilities.




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Pets at Home Creates an In-Store Digital Experience with iPad App Developed By IBM

Pets at Home, the UK’s leading pet specialist retailer and IBM today announced the launch of Sales Assist, an IBM MobileFirst for iOS app for iPad which will be used across 440 stores nationwide to make it easier and simpler for customers to purchase the products they need.




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New IBM Flex Systems Allow Clients to Build Larger Clouds in Smaller Data Centers

IBM today unveiled a number of major additions to its Flex System portfolio. The offerings combine the latest server technology with new virtualization, networking and management tools, allowing clients to consolidate their existing IT infrastructures and reduce operating costs. This will help clients use smaller data center environments to quickly deploy, manage and secure increasingly larger clouds.




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Vissensa Selects IBM Enterprise Cloud System to Improve Performance and Deliver New Services for Customers

IBM today announced that Vissensa, a UK-based managed service provider (MSP), has taken delivery of the IBM Enterprise Cloud System, which will help the company offer new and improved cloud services to its customers.




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IBM Announces Planned Acquisition of Promontory to Transform Regulatory Compliance with Watson

IBM today announced plans to acquire Promontory Financial Group, a global market-leading risk management and regulatory compliance consulting firm. Upon close, the capabilities of Promontory combined with IBM's deep industry expertise and Watson’s cognitive capabilities will directly address the massive operational effort and manual cost of escalating regulation and risk management requirements.