I am Pilgrim

Already at the front of the book it states that this is the only thriller that you need to read this year - to me you may very well read any other thrillers as well, but I am pretty sure none of them are going to be as great as I am Pilgrim.

This is the kind of book you are likely to get up in the middle of the night due to insomnia as you just have to read a few more pages to get some more answers.
This is the first novel by Terry Hayes and as such it is of course even more impressive, but as he has an extensive background as screenwriter he obviously knows the writer trade.

Another reason to read this thriller is that it is set in present time and actually make you reflect on some of the very serious and important political and religious challenges we have daily in our current global society.

To me, this is the best  thriller I have ever read !
#IamPilgrim

The life of Arve - or my caterpillar becomes a butterfly

 This is the short [life] story of one of my Painted Ladies raised in my flat in Oslo this summer and released from my balcony together with his four other cousins in August 2014:

This is Arve, my adult Painted Lady (Vanessa Cardui)

Here Arve is just about to "escape" his pupa (chrysalis) after his transformation from larva

Just about to pull himself out

Finally outside, pumping his wings

Almost there!!

Perfect - ready to fly out into the big world and possibly even to south Europe or Africa!

The Goldfinch

Donna Tartt is an excellent storyteller and The Goldfinch is a "brick" of a book that draws you quickly into a present time with a small kid who experiences a terror attack and who grows up in very diverse environment and culture that forces you to think through your own life and choices that makes this book a book you would like to last for ever.

Donna Tartt is very thorough and "wordy" in her storytelling, but with very few exceptions I really love her writing and can easily understand why she got the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2014.
From time to time, the story gets really exciting and is even close to a crime story, but what I really value the most is her warm description of some of the people the main character meets and gets close to - that even includes his best friend Boris who has a very "bad" influence on the main character, but has his way of showing love under his "bad" exterior that is fascinating and a bit scary.
Enjoy this excellent book it would take a while before you get across something as good as this - and if you have seen some of the great European art in any of the great museums in Amsterdam, the story gets even better :-)

Should I sequence my genome?

Over the last four-five years I have had the pleasure of giving talks about nano technology advances, specifically the very interesting research from IBM on the "DNA transistor"

The IBM DNA transistor

(ref article in NY Times from October 5, 2009) and its prediction of being able to sequence an individual persons genome for a cost of only $1000.
Just in case this does not sound too exciting for every reader, I need to take you back a very few steps to make sure you understand why this is actually is an important and exciting (?) message and technology and why you should be concerned and take a stand!

Every cell in a human body consists of 46 chromosomes that all contains strains of our DNA (thus all we need is a minuscule drop of saliva or even just a skin cell to read your DNA). As we all know the DNA is a double helix that appears like a twisted "ladder" with "steps", each of the steps consists of two different chemicals (base pairs) binded together and forming the "step" on the "ladder".
These two chemicals are either Adenine, Thymine, Cytosine or Guanine, shortened ATC and G. Interestingly is that Adenine (A) always binds to Thymine (T) and Cytosine (C) always to Guanine (G), thus if you "tear apart" the strands leaving behind only one side of the "ladder" and only one of the two chemicals building the "step" on the "ladder", you can actually discard the other side of the "ladder" without loosing any information because you only need to find out (identify) the single chemical as if that is an A we would know for certain that the discarded step of the "ladder" contained a T, and vice versa. The principle of the IBM DNA transistor is actually to read only one strand of the DNA by recognising the very faint electrical signal of each of the four chemicals and thus by reading all the strands in a sequence we will be able to sequence a complete genome which is a sequence of AATTGCATGGACTA....we are talking about an unique sequence of 5.3 billion steps (base pairs) that comprises your unique genome.

But hold your breath, out of your complete genome only about 2% is your genes, our exome. A human have about 20-25.000 genes that constitutes our exome, the rest is "junk" DNA (about 98%). Each gene consist of about 20-25.000 steps (base pairs), the longest is about 2 million base pairs long. These genes and their base pair sequence (ATCG) constitutes the recipe for a specific protein.

More fascinating metrics, all humans shares 99,8% of their genes and we share 90% with a banana! Also, the larva and the butterfly share 100% of the DNA, but recent research tells us that the human exome actually changes over its life cycle. As each cell in the human body is holding our entire genome and is being replicated over a periode of 7-10 years, its only "natural" to expect that during this process, from time to time, something goes wrong, this is what causes mutations. But also recent research (epigenetics) tells us that both environment and your lifestyle may introduce mutations, thus identical twins are not identical over the years as they typically are inclined to be exposed to different environments and lifestyle.

Now we are at the core of this story as we know that the genes are being inherited by our children, 50% from each parent and thus each one of us has 50% of the genes from our parents and what has the history told us about illness and traits we have inherited from our parents? Some are visible, like eye colours, but others are pretty serious:

• Huntington's disease (dominant mutation on chromosome 4)
• Cystic fibrosis (recessive mutation on chromosome 7) 
• A mutation on chromosomes 2 can provide colon cancer ...
• FTO gene on chromosomes 16 and increased risk of being overweight.
• BRCA1 can show weather a patient is predisposed for breast and ovarian cancer

My point is that some of our inherited mutations and defects are important to be aware in order to take preventive measures (like BRCA1), others are only dispositions and may not have an effect at all, but would you still like to know? Would you like to have your entire "book of life" printed so that you get a full view of all your traits and dispositions?

Even though the IBM prediction of sequencing your entire genome for $1000 has not yet come true, the cost being charged by multiple commercial labs are on a level that most people can afford, would it not be great to have all this information available for your doctor's insight into what can be expected in terms of future serious disease - is that what we want?

What about if your genome gets astray - that your  insurance company or even your employer gets information about a disposition that is not giving you the same life expectancy as the "common man"?
Does everyone have a clear opinion about the use of their genome - and what about the authorities - have they regulated who can use what? We know the police uses DNA to identify criminals, but that is, as of today, only part of the junk DNA that possibly cannot be used for any other purposes than unique identification.

If you sequence your DNA, would you share all the info with your children? They have, after all, inherited 50% and thus have inherited some of your potential dispositions for serious diseases. There are multiple ethical challenges and implications, for instance, if you give your genome to some "innocent" research project that anonymize all the samples (at least that is what they tell you) and the researcher finds out that your genome exposes a serious disease - should the researcher go back and warn you to make sure it does not kill you? After all, the fact that the genome has been anonymized does not prevent the researcher to find out it is you as one cannot anonymize something that is unique? If we have a database with genomes you will be able to search and compare and find the owner provided the owner is already in the genome database.

It is a bit of a surprise that we actually dont have much of a public debate on this very essential and important subject! There are lots of debates around cyber security and protection of your internet id's, but what about your unique genome - you cannot have a new genome just because someone has misused your genome and the information therein! We all need to make sure that the information we are disclosing when we let the hospital sequence our genome for the good purpose of pro-active medications and treatments of inherited disposition for serious diseases stays protected and is not being misused for other purposes!
We all want to make the gene-sequencing a success as it brings a lot of great opportunities to a better health for all of us, its just that we also need to have the process and access regulated to avoid misuse!

References:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/06/science/06dna.html?_r=0 
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/whole-genome-sequencing-predict-disease/ 
http://functionalbio.com/web/services-dna-sequencing.php?gclid=CMn9tsLjkb4CFQTbcgodJG4AXQ 
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/jun/08/genome-sequenced 

Stupidity and Cyber Security

The Norwegian incumbent telecom Telenor filed a criminal police case last year for unlawful computer intrusion, and a Norwegian security analyst uncovered a previously unknown and sophisticated infrastructure for targeted attacks - and Phishing attacks are the most common method. Telenor and other large enterprises spends a silly amount of millions to repair the damages after these cyber attacks - and none of us should be surprised as all of us are almost daily receiving various phishing attacks that are getting more and more sophisticated.

The problem is however possible to avoid by more sophisticated analysis of the content of your incoming email's. One simple method is of course to investigate the attachments thoroughly (we are already doing that) and specifically the URL's, but we all know that at the end of day it is really very hard to avoid stupidity - that is executives that double clicks on "anything"and consequently they are exposing not only themselves, but all of their executive peers by clicking on one of these URL's without caution (apparently because they believe they have a fool proof early detection system) and all it does is opening a back door to your system. Its happening every day, thus the enterprises need to make major investments into sophisticated solutions that can cover up for the executives stupidity - whilst the rest of us just have to apply a small portion of intelligence and consideration before we dump the phishing email in the waste box. One thing is that we who receives these phishing attempts can possibly try to apply a bit of common sense, but we should also educate all those that are sending us serious and proper emails to avoid sending links, in most cases it is more than enough to just instruct us to login on to a specific site (your named bank etc) without providing the link.



References:
Telenor cyber attack

Hybrid Cloud - an Orchestration Nightmare?

Gartner Says Nearly Half of Large Enterprises Will Have Hybrid Cloud Deployments by the End of 2017. Interesting, multiple analysts and market research companies predicts more or less the same, thus we should possibly prepare our self for an avalanche of large enterprises that wants to connect their private cloud to various public cloud offerings - or what?

Hybrid Cloud - multi cloud

We all know that most of the large enterprises are all engaged in building their private cloud solutions, for the right reasons, i.e. automated, ubiquitous, agile and flexible services - all to a lower cost than the traditional IT services!

Lets assume that the enterprises are achieving what they expect from their private cloud and is now ready for the next big step, the Hybrid Cloud.

Until recently this basically implied setting up an agreement with a public SaaS supplier and integrate their services as transparent as possible - including by deployment of an appliance that was "out-of-the-box" integration ready - all good, but the reality of today is that the enterprises wants to move discrete workloads into the cloud and establish this cloud service transparently to their users, not only specific applications.
We also know that the enterprises have spent lots of resources into finding the right tools and management software enabling them to orchestrate their private cloud environment. So how are they going to establish seamless and transparent services integration across the clouds? How are the enterprises going to leverage the synergy from their private cloud investments and automation/service management tools?
Not by some integration appliances because they don't exist! Also, each of the public cloud providers  have selected, and in many cases developed (home-brewed), their own tools and management software - so how are the enterprises going to integrate across all these desperate service management solution and make the environment manageable and seamless across the clouds?

Orchestration Nightmare!

Cloud providers, and consultancy companies, will of course offer you services that will help you on your way.... but will you be able to not compromise your own investments in tools and software when your public cloud provider have selected completely different solutions and tools?

Okay, we have not mentioned standards - after all the whole idea with standards is to make sure you actually will be able to integrate across different platforms, but to me the only standards that are of interest in order to protect existing investments and make sure you will be able to control and establish the seamless and transparent hybrid cloud solution, are the integration standards, i.e. the APIs like REST and its web services.

Through publication of standardised APIs, by the cloud providers, the enterprises will be able to integrate and control their discrete environment that they have lifted into the public cloud - and it gives the enterprises the ease of moving these discrete workloads to other cloud providers, if required - thats the agility and flexibility that is needed for the enterprises in the future to ensure the most cost efficient dynamic cloud...

Internet-of-things - everything disconnected?

Almost everyone has predicted the wave of Internet-of-things,  current prediction is 26 billion connected devices in 2020 (1). These devices are mainly sensors and actuators that are all communicating, sharing data and making everyone's life much better(?) - and now even Google have entered the market of sensors and actuators (ref the acquisition of Nest Labs (3))- really exciting if you ask me :-) And Google is on the right track!
For the consumer market, Internet-of-things has, so far, been mainly about how to implement smoke- and fire detectors, light- and heat control, window shades etc, all interconnected and ensuring that you can control and reduce the energy consumption in your house, provide better warning of any possible hazardous fires, even leakage of gas etc. It has also been about how to make your washing machine and refrigerator more "intelligent" by knowing what is needed to be picked up by your local grocer on your way home, even having an app that gives you a recipe for today's cooking based on what you have in your fridge!? All to best for the "common man" and to ensure that we become more cost efficient and secure, but has this really happened? Is everything really connected? No, surely not to a large extent and why?

One reason is of course cost of the devices, deployment/configuration and connectivity to the Internet. Surely the prevention of a fire or break-in in your house can justify these investments? Yes, but that is of course not necessarily what triggers the consumer, what triggers the consumers is if the infrastructure is installed and connected by a service provider, the local energy utility etc and that the consumer can be offered a subscription of the various services. This becomes even more evident when you look into sensors and actuators within healthcare. 
  
Globally, 87% of the over $2 trillion spent annually on healthcare goes to the cost of the care itself, such as the work doctors do, emergency room visits, medication, and procedures. The service provider can apply predictive analytics to the data acquired from the the sensors in each home and not only monitor elderly people's health condition in their homes, but actually pro-actively save life and ensure that they stay in their homes much longer to the benefit for the elderly themselves, for their family and for the society at large that will save millions of dollars in healthcare - talking about compelling business case!!
A wearable bracelet attached to the elderly patient is all what it takes, of course you can do more, there are hundreds of sensors in market (check out http://devices.wolfram.com/), but such a bracelet is a small investment with a major impact on the healthcare of elderly:

• Location awareness, the person can be tracked outside his/her home when the person actually should be inside his/her home (night) and the person can be tracked being on the very same spot for a long time (laying helpless on the floor etc).
• Measuring blood sugar as well as pulse and pressure – pro-active prevention of  heart attack by heart rate pattern recognition (predictive analytics).
• Measure too high temperature from the patient as well as the environment (fire), also measuring humidity due to some accident (water leakages etc) in the home and/or in the bed (urine).

Is this a business opportunity - is it a global trend? Yes, you bet:

IN 2016 The U.S. market for

wearable smart fitness devices

will exceed $1 billion (2)

So lets ensure that these simple sensors are being implemented to the benefit of the elderly and society at large - lets make the Internet-of-things become really connected!

Reference/source:
1) http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9245507/Why_the_Internet_of_Things_may_never_happen
2) Parks Associates 
3) Google & Nest labs