Doping in sports

Doping in sports is something that has happened for what is thought to be many years, but it is now only getting to the point that the medical technology is able to accurately find any substances. Lance Armstrong’s doping case is huge because he had been accused for so long, and during all of that time he had always been able to fight the allegations in court or disprove the findings. This time the evidence was so overwhelming that he didn’t even try to fight it. His silence was almost a silent and passive admission of guilt. Fans outraged on social media both against and to the defense of the star but the damage was done in the public eye. The media had a field day with the story, because Armstrong was a hero and it is always a story when a hero falls from grace. He has lost his money, his sponsors, his career and most of all his name as a star and his own brand.

Thankfully the only legacy that will maintain and that should maintain is his LiveStrong foundation. The charity has done wonders in providing funds for research into curing cancer. The charity shouldn’t be punished for the actions of their founder. He stared the foundation after his own battle with cancer and used his influence to fight and provide for people with the disease and to prevent the disease so nobody had to suffer. However even since the doping scandal they have distanced themselves from Lance publicly.

The biggest athlete I can think of that something like this has happened to is Jose Conseco. He was a major league baseball player, and it was discovered that he was using performance enhancing substances. He was essentially banned from the sport, and within the last decade has written a book about his experience and what really goes on in the world of MLB and steroids. Since then many other MLB players have been pulled in to be tested for performance enhancers, it almost seems more than any other American sport.

I think this technology could be used to make major advances in medicine by tracking the types of medicinal drugs that are on the market and seeing how the work with a person’s body. From there work could be done to tailor that drug to make it more effective, or perhaps even lessen the side effects.

Hot Topic

Hacking is generally seen in the public eye as something that is harmful to someone, and for a malicious purpose. The image it is presented in movies and television doesn't help the image of the act. However the act of hacking itself may not be harmful, but rather the intention of the hacker.

Many hackers make a purely honestly living working for major corporations like banks and social networks to attempt to hack into the sites to see what kinds of holes they can find in security, and then report back to the company. Some people feel uneasy about this because it would be very easy for someone with a malicious intent to pose as a certified ethical hacker to get easy access to information. However the practice still stands, but sometimes the results are not always great for the company.

Recently Facebook came under fire when refusing to pay someone who found a bug in their system, even going as far as stating that his poor use of English (the person was not American) made them unsure whether the problem was even a bug or not. The company is still in talks with this person after he left findings on the personal page of Mark Zuckerberg, which is a violation of Facebooks terms of service.

Ethical hacking isn't to be confused however with the cyber group Anonymous. The group of hackers, which the identities of the group members are not even known to each other and also have no leader, pick targets that they feel embody censorship or go against the views of the people. They have shut down the website for The Westboro Baptist church because of their picketing of the funerals of fallen soldiers and anti-homosexual statements. However the group has also targeted government organizations over sensitive documents, the SOPA and PIPA laws, and most recently the files of Edward Snowden. Currently the group is targeted by the FBI with one possible member in custody.

http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/definition/ethical-hacker

http://www.dailytech.com/Facebook+Ignores+Hackers+Bug+Report+Then+Refuses+to+Pay+Him/article33195.htm

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/07/ff_anonymous/all/

Costa Concordia

The technology that is used is obviously the robotic submarines that were used to explore under the water. Also the mobile platform that was set up for workers to raise the ship from, as well as any diving equipment that would have been used by men and women to rig the cabling to the ship itself. There are also the large ballast tanks that were used as counterweights that allowed the ship to right itself once it had reached a certain degree of pitch in the water. It allowed the vessel to carry itself under its own momentum.

There is also the ships that will be pulling away the Costa, the tug liners that attach themselves with cabling and eventually the larger ships to pull the cruise liner back to port in Italy. Many of those ships are run on a state of the art turbine engine system to allow for faster speeds and more reliable engines than standard diesels.

Centralization vs Decentralization

There can be benefits to both Centralization and Decentralization in technology. Apple was considered one of the most innovative brands in technology under the leadership of Steve Jobs. He was so integral to the growth of Apple as a company that when they were failing as a business he was brought back into the company by the very people that had forced him out years before. It was after his return to the company that they began to make waves in the consumer electronics industry with the "i" devices that have become the corner stone of the market. After his death everyone already had such low expectations where the company would go that stocks immediately fell and the outlook of their advancements looked slim. The company has started to look at going more of a decentralized direction of managing their business.

Decentralization has worked very well though for a company like Nissan and the French car company, Renault. Together the companies were doing moderately well in their respective prime markets, Japan and Europe. However after the companies merged into an almost equal partnership their ability to do business has increased. Each company now reports to one central manager who takes direct from regional managers and board managers. Those groups all work together across many countries to make decisions for the company.

There is no real way to say that one concept is better than the other, just is it better for the business at that time.