IT Insights Blog

I’m a newcomer to the field of IT. My background is publishing and I confess that I’m little more than an ink-stained hack. My job mainly entails reading about and listening to people much smarter than I, and then hammering out articles on various IT topics. Think of the fabled 1,000 monkeys banging away on 1,000 typewriters. The more I learn about the field, the more amazed I am at how pervasive IT is in all aspects of our modern world. There are literally tens of millions of people learning about and working with IT. Since I also work in IT, I figured that I ought to learn something about the field.

Charlie Brown couldn’t have been more right when he observed that, “In the book of life, the answers aren’t in the back.” There is no easy way out when learning life’s crucial lessons, and when we take short cuts, or cheat our way through learning opportunities, we usually get burned. I recently came across an article that shares Charlie Brown’s perspective, addressing cheating on IT certification exams specifically. IT exam fraud is a growing problem that could potentially mitigate the value of IT certifications.

There's an old cartoon from Gary Larson's iconic The Far Side that will probably sound familiar to many of you out there. The illustration is of a dog riding a unicycle across a tightrope, high above a legion of goggle-eyed spectators gathered beneath the soaring roof of a big top circus tent. The dog has a cat in its mouth, is keeping a hula-hoop in motion around its waist, and is using its front paws to juggle four balls while balancing an urn on its head. The caption is typical of Larson's cracked genius: "High above the hushed crowd, Rex tried to remain focused. Still, he couldn't shake one nagging thought: He was an old dog and this was a new trick."

The United States is a great place to live. I’m proud of my country and its accomplishments. But sometimes we forget that the world is made up of other countries too. The Simpsons, the world’s longest-running scripted primetime television series, is a great parody of our (at times overbearing) culture. Homer in particular epitomizes the “Ugly American” stereotype. His actions have caused him to be beaten up at Buckingham Palace, banned from Brazil and mobbed in Italy. Homer led to the closing of the U.S. embassy in Australia, and cost the American taxpayer $1 trillion in Cuba.

March Madness is here and, with regard to the NCAA basketball tournament, March has been just that — madness. There have been game winning buzzer beaters, a comeback of epic proportions, and one of the biggest upsets in tournament history. (That game didn’t just bust my bracket, it decimated it.) When watching these tournament games, one can’t help but notice the effort that is being put into every possession. These players are fighting for their chance to be put in the history books, clawing their way to the coveted national championship. Why, it’s enough to make me want to bust out the old NCAA Tournament theme music.