So cool!
STARS-Me (or Space Tethered Autonomous Robotic Satellite – Mini elevator), built by engineers at Shizuoka University in Japan, is comprised of two 10-centimeter cubic satellites connected by a 10-meter-long tether. A small robot representing an elevator car, about 3 centimeters across and 6 centimeters tall, will move up and down the cable using a motor as the experiment floats in space.
Via Science News, “Japan has launched a miniature space elevator,” and “the STARS project.”
Lately, I’ve been asking what takes threat modeling from a practice to a mission. If you’re reading this blog, you may have seen that some people are nearly mad about threat modeling. The ones who say “you’re never done threat modeling.” The ones who’ve made it the center of their work practice. What distinguishes those people from those who keep trying to teach developers about the difference between a hactivist and a script kiddie?
A book I’ve read recently, “The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think In Action,” gives some useful perspective. It’s about how practitioners use the cases and issues before them to grapple with questions like ‘is this the best way to approach this problem?’ It’s not an easy read by any stretch. It engages in analysis of both what makes a profession, and how several professions including architect, psychologist, and town planner engage with their work.
They may ask themselves, for example, “What features do I notice when I recognize this thing? What are the criteria by which I make this judgment? What procedures am I enacting when I perform this skill? How am I framing the problem that I am trying to solve?” Usually reflection on knowing-in-action goes together with reflection on the stuff at hand. There is some puzzling, or troubling, or interesting phenomenon with which the individual is trying to deal. As he tries to make sense of it, he also reflects on the understandings which have been implicit in his action, understandings which he surfaces, criticizes, restructures, and embodies in further action. It is this entire process of reflection-in-action which is central to the “art” by which practitioners sometimes deal well with situations of uncertainty, instability, uniqueness, and value conflict.
Those seeking to advance their practice of threat modeling would do well to pick up a copy and use it as a lens into reflecting on their practice of the arts.
After the jump, I’m going to quote more bits that struck me as I read, and offer some reflection on them.