CJ Walsh’s Technical Blog

Sustainable Development – International Law & Personal Ethics

At the level of the Individual … ‘sustainability’ urgently requires a revolution in professional and personal ethics.

However, at levels above or beyond the Individual … reference must be made to a common understanding of Sustainable Human & Social Development which has a foundation in a robust Framework of International Law.  It is this approach which continues to facilitate, at Sustainable Design International, our development of the theory of ‘sustainability’ … and its more effective application to frontline design practice.

Sustainable Human and Social Development:  Development which meets the responsible needs, i.e. the Human and Social Rights1, of this generation – without stealing the life and living resources from future generations, especially our children … their children … and the next five generations of children.

[1]  As defined, in International Law, by the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN OHCHR).

Inspired by the Culture of the North American Indigenous Peoples … this definition also incorporates the concept of ’7 Generation Thinking’.

.

Sustainable Design2:  The ethical design response, in built or wrought form, to the concept of Sustainable Human and Social Development.

[2]  Includes Spatial Planning, Architectural/Engineering/Interior/Industrial Design and e-Design, etc.

.

Sustainable Design Solutions must be appropriate to local geography, climate and future climate change, economy, culture, social need and language(s)/dialect(s), etc.

Our Ultimate Goal, however, must be to achieve a dynamic and harmonious balance between a Sustainable Human Environment (including the social, built, virtual and economic environments …) and a flourishing, not just a surviving, Natural Environment … with the Overall Aim of achieving Social Wellbeing for All.

Please see previous Posts on this Technical Blog … www.cjwalsh.ie … for supporting definitions to the above text.

.

.

END

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Thursday, March 25th, 2010 architecture, built environment, climate change, economic environment, human & social rights, human environment, institutional environment, international law, natural environment, sustainability, virtual environment No Comments

Fellow WordPress Bloggers – A Cautionary Tale ?

Late last Tuesday night, 2009-10-20 … and early into Wednesday morning … I was working quietly at my computer in a Vienna Hotel Room … carrying out some basic maintenance on this Blog Site … and deleting the latest splurge of ‘Missed’ Spam from a continuous torrent of Russian Spam being directed, I can only presume now, at many … or all(?) … WordPress Blog Sites.  I then returned to the Site’s Dashboard Page, and proceeded to Log Out.  Only … the Log Out Page was a blank.  I tried again and again to access it.  No success.  Later, I found out that we had been hacked !

You don’t believe these things, until it happens to you personally.  Well … it did … and there is no use in crying.  This is just a game being played by ‘nerds’ … for the benefit of other ‘nerds’ … and none of them have any understanding of Collateral Damage.

Our Apologies, therefore, for being off-line from just around midnight, local Irish time, on Tuesday night … until early in the afternoon of the following day, Wednesday 2009-10-21.  As part of the process of going back on-line, the Site has been cleaned and sanitized.  Unfortunately, we can do nothing about the WordPress Software itself.

Our Thanks must go to our backup ‘techies’ at 2bscene Ltd., with a special thank you to Tom.  Good work, men !   Smoke them, if you have them !!

 

Arriving back in Dublin, however, I again went to the Dashboard Page … and noticed this ‘cute’ little blurb on the WordPress Development Blog …

” WordPress 2.8.5: Hardening Release   2009-10-21

As you know, over the past couple of months we have been working on the new features for WordPress 2.9.  We have also been working on trying to make WordPress as secure as possible and during this process we have identified a number of security hardening changes that we thought were worth back-porting to the 2.8 branch, so as to get these improvements out there and make all your sites as secure as possible.”

What a load of old rubbish … and intended to obscure what had really happened !   Serious weaknesses in the WordPress Software had been exploited by the ‘nerds’ who hacked our Site.  Let’s hope that this latest WordPress Patch will be effective.

But … how many other WordPress Blog Sites had been hacked around the same time ?

 

Another issue …

On the Dashboard Page of this Blog Site, we are being told that … over a certain period of time … Akismet has protected us from approximately 4,500 Spam Messages.

However … on the Akismet Statistics Page … over the same period … we are informed that approximately 3,800 Spams have been caught … while the number of ‘Missed’ Spam is always Zero.

I don’t know about anyone else … but, for me, those figures are a long jump away from adding up.

WordPress is a great format for Blog Sites … but, this is sloppy work from the WordPress People !   Do they give a damn about the ‘users’ … the general public … you and me ?

 

 

END

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Friday, October 23rd, 2009 technical control, virtual environment 1 Comment

Search

 

 

February 2012
S M T W T F S
« Jan    
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
26272829  

Links