I participated in some of the early versions of COL Conti's Kobayashi Maru Experiments. He has a lot of other great publications in the cyber education space. Important mentor of mine.
I'd like to note that his thoughts are quite influential still in the US DoD's Cyber communities, including the NSA. I believe it to be very important work.
I went through an alcoholism recovery program by the generosity of uncle sam, not-so-gently administered by the good ol' US Army.
They made me go to AA. For a number of reasons, it didn't stick. I didn't get it. I didn't go back.
If you're not interested, that's ok. But there's basically no barrier to entry on this 24/7 open meeting. Just go. Just log in and sit and listen for a while.
Even if you're not an alcoholic, it'll be good for you.
For those of you who might be turned off by religious talk (like i was). Just remember that this is absolutely a secular institution. It's just made up of people, and some people are religious, and that's ok.
I am a Life-Long, grateful Google user who has some thoughts on AdSense that I've considered quite deeply. Adsense allows anyone of any economic standing to access some of the most refined and powerful tools for gathering, using, and sharing knowledge that humanity has ever built. Google's contribution to modern ad tech is, in that sense, an immensely laudable contribution to humankind.
The lack of the ability to choose where I spend my valuable attention amounts at some level to a nonconsensual interaction. I am willing to pay for both Google's services and those of the content creator (and I am sensitive to the fairness of that relationship as well), but not being able to choose how I pay has led me to make some personal use decisions that put me in conflict with Google's revenue model.
I have to use an ad blocker
Security concerns
Unhealthy child development
Anti-patterns showing in the development of the internet both technologically and socially
Google's anticompetitive ad-tech behavior leading to
unhealthy browser market share leading to
Reduction in diversity of thought in internet technology conversations
Centralization of power in ad selection has the unintended side effect of dragging content along with it. Ad personalization (for the sake of maximizing profits in ad sales) led to over-personalization of the types of ads we see (echo chamber effect).
Automatic content curation followed the ad-tech model, increasing profits by increasing "engagement." This led to a dangerous strengthening of the echo chamber effect.
We're all now used to the central artery of human information being "free" as in beer, but costing us our ability to have a balanced, more-or-less impartial information diet or at least forcing us to work very hard for it.
Google, please figure out how to give us another way to pay.
I'd like to note that his thoughts are quite influential still in the US DoD's Cyber communities, including the NSA. I believe it to be very important work.