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There are no Linux-equivalent options for the non-student hobbyist wanting to cut their teeth on the latest generation zSeries software. You simply cannot rent cheap mainframe time with the IBM ADCD (though you could still learn a lot with just a raw z/OS subscription, there would be no compilers, no databases, no middleware, etc.). I'm not kidding or exaggerating; we just looked into this earlier this year (and if any experienced zSeries folks know differently, please post a correction here). IBM prohibits anyone from buying an ADCD subscription, then renting out time on their zSeries, at any price, with access to the ADCD. Your only option if you don't outright own a z/OS license is to pay for the IBM Remote Development Program (RDP). And no, you cannot buy an RDP subscription then resell slices of it. So you can see why the minimum entry fee of more then $4,000 USD per year for RDP would put off most non-student hobbyists.

If you are a student, you can see if your school offers zSeries courses, or look into getting a faculty sponsor for such a course in higher education campuses. IBM has programs for encouraging the training of students in zSeries technologies.

And before anyone pipes up with "Use FLEX-ES!", the commercial x86 zSeries emulator, let me disabuse you of that notion: it is dead in the water at the moment, due to legal fallout from IBM's suit with PSI that is too convoluted to get into here. Only grandfathered commercial licenses are kept on support; no new commercial or development licenses are granted by IBM, and all old development licenses were forcibly terminated as they came up for renewal. We know this because we were one of the developer licensees.

And before anyone else pipes up with "Just buy a used/cheap z/OS box!", let me set you straight on that notion: IBM has cracked down on z/OS licenses to refurbished hardware, to the point where we couldn't find anyone who would sell us old generation hardware with a new license of z/OS because they couldn't promise they could secure said license. And even if you could find some available hardware, the cheapest z/OS license quote we could find for the smallest old mainframe that we could locate was around $150K. At that price, you might as well go all-in for a brand-new "baby mainframe" for $250K.

The zSeries tech is undeniably cool and fun to play with but definitely not for non-students with a beer budget, even just to learn. The Linux world could learn a heck of a lot from the mainframe world, though. My dream platform would probably be a Lisp Machine with its data management and security facilities (amongst others) leavened and matured from mainframe tech. The zSeries folks take for granted solutions that the Linux world doesn't even realize are problems to begin with, and the zSeries guys aren't ashamed to swipe tech they like from other platforms so they aren't standing still, either; it is a pretty nifty learning experience if you are willing to dispense with any preconceived notions of "obsolete mainframes".

There are no Linux-equivalent options for the non-student hobbyist wanting to cut their teeth on the latest generation zSeries software. You simply cannot rent cheap mainframe time with the IBM ADCD (though you could still learn a lot with just a raw z/OS subscription, there would be no compilers, no databases, no middleware, etc.). I'm not kidding or exaggerating; we just looked into this earlier this year (and if any experienced zSeries folks know differently, please post a correction here). IBM prohibits anyone from buying an ADCD subscription, then renting out time on their zSeries, at any price, with access to the ADCD. Your only option if you don't outright own a z/OS license is to pay for the IBM Remote Development Program (RDP). And no, you cannot buy an RDP subscription then resell slices of it. So you can see why the minimum entry fee of more then $4,000 USD per year for RDP would put off most non-student hobbyists.

If you are a student, you can see if your school offers zSeries courses, or look into getting a faculty sponsor for such a course in higher education campuses. IBM has programs for encouraging the training of students in zSeries technologies.

And before anyone pipes up with "Use FLEX-ES!", the commercial x86 zSeries emulator, let me disabuse you of that notion: it is dead in the water at the moment, due to legal fallout from IBM's suit with PSI that is too convoluted to get into here. Only grandfathered commercial licenses are kept on support; no new commercial or development licenses are granted by IBM, and all old development licenses were forcibly terminated as they came up for renewal. We know this because we were one of the developer licensees.

And before anyone else pipes up with "Just buy a used/cheap z/OS box!", let me set you straight on that notion: IBM has cracked down on z/OS licenses to refurbished hardware, to the point where we couldn't find anyone who would sell us old generation hardware with a new license of z/OS because they couldn't promise they could secure said license. And even if you could find some available hardware, the cheapest z/OS license quote we could find for the smallest old mainframe that we could locate was around $150K. At that price, you might as well go all-in for a brand-new "baby mainframe" for $250K.

The zSeries tech is undeniably cool and fun to play with but definitely not for non-students with a beer budget, even just to learn. The Linux world could learn a heck of a lot from the mainframe world, though. My dream platform would probably be a Lisp Machine with its data management and security facilities (amongst others) leavened and matured from mainframe tech. The zSeries folks take for granted solutions that the Linux world doesn't even realize are problems to begin with, and the zSeries guys aren't ashamed to swipe tech they like from other platforms so they aren't standing still, either; it is a pretty nifty learning experience if you are willing to dispense with any preconceived notions of "obsolete mainframes".

MTBF measured in decades, unsurpassed security, ability to move a LOT of data (like up to 336 FICON 4GB channels), ability to concurrently add/remove resources (processors, memory, channels), etc. Have a look at http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/resources/systems_z_news_announcement_pdf_ZSO03018.pdf

Lol, right. I mean, companies would just love spending billions of dollars to develop something and then having a rival just pick it up and copy it. That would _totally_ spur innovation, dude!

Yeah, you're right. The concept of open sharing sure hasn't spurred innovation in the past...

Biological neural networks are comprised of many more units of much higher complexity and containing much more variety than we could hope to simulate even on a tiny scale yet, even if we had a list of all the types of neurons and connections required.

I wouldn't say that.:

"Biologically detailed large-scale models of the brain can now be simulated thanks to increasingly powerful massively parallel supercomputers. We present an overview, for the general technical reader, of a neuronal network model of layers II/III of the neocortex built with biophysical model neurons. These simulations, carried out on an IBM Blue Gene/L(TM) supercomputer, comprise up to 22 million neurons and 11 billion synapses, which makes them the largest simulations of this type ever performed. Such model sizes correspond to the cortex of a small mammal."

What did people do with early websites in the beggining.

At first, they were just boring static pages that were either a horrible marketing attempt. How far has the internet come now that there are things like collaborative Encyclopedia building (Wiki), Google docs, YouTube, Ebay etc.

It is impossible to tell what this medium will make possible in 5 years.

Also, I wouldn't exactly call IBM a furry or weirdo. Nor would I say that Cisco is either. There are also a growing number of universities colleges using the space.

The thing I try to hint at for most is, look at all the different news articles about 3D virtual worlds in general. How many different categories to they fall into? Economics, scams, porn, politics, social, collaboration, business, marketing, play, serious, military, health care... and more. Something that is looked at in so many different ways has huge potential as a medium. And the more open the server side, the more likely it will be adopted by a larger group and customized for even more possibilities.

• Ricardo Ruiz, Huiman Kang, François A. Detcheverry, Elizabeth Dobisz, Dan S. Kercher, Thomas R. Albrecht, Juan J. de Pablo, and Paul F. Nealey "Density Multiplication and Improved Lithography by Directed Block Copolymer Assembly", Science 15 August 2008: 936-939, DOI: 10.1126/science.1157626
• Ion Bita, Joel K. W. Yang, Yeon Sik Jung, Caroline A. Ross, Edwin L. Thomas, and Karl K. Berggren "Graphoepitaxy of Self-Assembled Block Copolymers on Two-Dimensional Periodic Patterned Templates" Science 15 August 2008: 939-943. DOI: 10.1126/science.1159352

Block copolymers are polymers (long-chain molecules that make up, for example, plastics) that are designed in such a way that they spontaneously form well-defined nano-patterns when allowed to equilibrate. So for instance a block-copolymer cast as a coating might spontaneously form nano-sized cylinders inside it (where the 'cylinder' and 'matrix' are formed of two different components... the two 'blocks'). Depending on what kind of copolymer you synthesize, you can form nano-cylinders, nano-sheets, nano-spheres, and other shapes (check out this, and this for some examples of the morphologies one can obtain).

One of the problems with block-copolymers, however, is that although they form very well-defined shapes (of exceedingly small and regular size), that's useless if you can't put those nano-objects where you need them. That's where this new work in "Templated Self-Assembly" comes into play. Basically you create a conventional, big pattern using the tried-and-tested techniques used to make microchips (optical lithography, e-beam lithography, etc.). Then you use that as a template for the block-copolymer. It fills in the gaps in the big pattern with its much smaller-scale nano-objects... which are now placed at well-defined positions because of the larger-scale template. So basically you get "density multiplication" of whatever pattern you're able to make.

So if you can use normal lithography to make a pattern of 100 nm, the block-copolymer can fill in the gaps and give you a pattern with sizes of 20 nm. Also, this "self-assembly" process has a way of "healing" over defects, basically giving you a very well-defined pattern even if your original template wasn't perfect.

The patterns in question can be "chemical templates" (basically stripes of different chemicals on a surface), or "topographical templates" (physical channels), which is what the two above-mentioned papers deal with, respectively. (Other kinds of directed-assembly, like surface treatments, electric fields, or thermal fields, are also possible.)

The research is coming along very nicely, and Hitachi seems pretty serious about it. There's no guarantee that this will end up in real technology someday, but I'd say this is looking more and more viable as the research pours in.

(Disclosure: My research covers similar topics, and I've worked with some of the above-mentioned people on occasion.)

Yes. It looks like Linux support was added in July '06 with version 7.0.1

They really do not hire any Americans in significant numbers.

Yeah funny how a company called International Business Machines which operates in 170 countries and gets 63% of its revenue from outside the US would even think to hire someone anyone but Americans. I can't fathom why they want to hire locally in BRIC countries where IBM's revenue grew 26% in 2007. Apparently no one informed IBM that they have a responsibility to only hire Americans who know little to nothing about the countries where IBM is seeing the highest growth.

I cannot explain it but over the last several years I have yet to see an Indian developer who was trully creative and innovative.

Right, because a nuclear power like India with a billion citizens must not have a single creative person. I'm sure all the incredibly talented Indian engineers and doctors I've personally met must really be from somewhere else. After all, according to you they have no imagination or creativity if they are from India.

Part of the problems arise from the asymmetric |/ position you get when working with a mouse or trackball.
That's why devices like mousetrapper is used by many who has problems. It is used kind of like a trackpad found on laptops, but instead of a non-tactile piece of plastic (or glass), it's a rubberized fabric that you move around.
Personally, I'd prefer one of these keyboards from IBM, though.
With those, the position for using the mouse and the keyboard is exactly the same, since the pointing-device sits between g, h and b. =)

Since basically forever. See this

There's lots of good material on Literacy Bridge's own site, and elsewhere. But a little plug: I had a change to speak with Cliff for about an hour and a half when I was reporting from OSCon. He was an interesting guy with a really good project. I wrote up my impressions of the conversation at: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/davidmertz?entry=project_leaders

But can I play Quake on it?

Actually, you can. A couple of games are available on the IBM AIX software FTP site. You have your choice of Quake or Quake 2, even. Since POWER6 still runs binaries from the previous generations of software, go give it a try. Of course, you'd probably need to launch one instance of Quake per thread to really stress the system, since I'm pretty sure Quake's not multithreaded. ;-)

~ Mike

It largely depends on the model; but, as far as I know, all models of the T6x series at least are certified to work with RHEL and SLES - which means that they'll likely run whatever you throw at them.

"Once upon a time, I worked at a company that used Linux as their primary desktop OS. The interface was horrible, ugly, cluttered, and didn't follow any of the conventions of the prior OS (Windows), or of any other possible prior OS." Good for you. How about evaluating a product on its current merits instead of issues you had "once upon a time." http://download.boulder.ibm.com/ibmdl/pub/software/lotus/lotusweb/product/nd8/demo/shell_popup.html There might be a lot to dislike about Lotus Notes, but your experience with it in a bad implementation 8 years ago is not sufficient justification to karma whore by attacking it now.

The link in TFS didn't work for me (they may have fixed it by now), but here's the marketwatch article and BigBlue's press release.
Oh, and uh, WOOHOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Ibm press release.

IBM uses the IBM JVM.

Read & Learn, And Legalize Marijuana

Since the article is often pulled from websites, the first article you should read and burn into your mind is this, Google for the title and archive a copy for yourself:

"A break-in to end all break-ins"
"In 1971, stolen FBI files exposed the government's domestic spying program"

It's an amazing story, and in 2008, how much has this expanded into every corner of our lives? The majority of Americans are brainwashed sheep consumers with a limp wet noodle for a brain, thrashing around with their Wii and Paris Hilton media like a fat dinoasaur in a tar pit. Stay informed, we have no privacy, encryption is good but useless with acoustic monitoring, reflections in the eye and objects in your environment, etc.! If it's electronic, there's always a loophole. You shine brighter with each electronic device you use, in many ways. Don't trust Hushmail or any web based mail service to keep anything of yours secure or to provide any reasonable degree of security. Secure your computer room and rig your computer to shut down if you use encryption like Truecrypt or other when your environment is entered by someone other than you or those you permit and trust (you shouldn't trust anyone, everyone has a price)

Compromising Reflections or How to Read LCD Monitors Around the Corner
http://www.infsec.cs.uni-sb.de/~unruh/publications/reflections.pdf [uni-sb.de]

And more:

http://www.eff.org/wp/detecting-packet-injection
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_remailer
http://cryptome.org/tempest-law.htm
http://seclab.uiuc.edu/pubs/LeMayT06.pdf
http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~dfrankow/files/lam-etrics2006-security.pdf
http://cryptome.org/nsa-vaneck.htm
http://www.alobbs.com/macchanger
http://lifehacker.com/software/ssh/geek-to-live--encrypt-your-web-browsing-session-with-an-ssh-socks-proxy-237227.php
http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/five_stages.html
http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-92/SP800-92.pdf
http://csrc.nist.gov/itsec/guidance_WinXP_Home.html
http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-84/SP800-84.pdf
http://all.net/books/document/harvard.html
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-keyc.html
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-keyc2/
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-keyc3/
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/emsec/optical-faq.html
http://www.cs.washington.edu/education/courses/csep590/06wi/
http://www.wiley.com/legacy/compbooks/mcnamara/links.html
http://lifeha

Read & Learn, And Legalize Marijuana

Since the article is often pulled from websites, the first article you should read and burn into your mind is this, Google for the title and archive a copy for yourself:

"A break-in to end all break-ins"
"In 1971, stolen FBI files exposed the government's domestic spying program"

It's an amazing story, and in 2008, how much has this expanded into every corner of our lives? The majority of Americans are brainwashed sheep consumers with a limp wet noodle for a brain, thrashing around with their Wii and Paris Hilton media like a fat dinoasaur in a tar pit. Stay informed, we have no privacy, encryption is good but useless with acoustic monitoring, reflections in the eye and objects in your environment, etc.! If it's electronic, there's always a loophole. You shine brighter with each electronic device you use, in many ways. Don't trust Hushmail or any web based mail service to keep anything of yours secure or to provide any reasonable degree of security. Secure your computer room and rig your computer to shut down if you use encryption like Truecrypt or other when your environment is entered by someone other than you or those you permit and trust (you shouldn't trust anyone, everyone has a price)

Compromising Reflections or How to Read LCD Monitors Around the Corner
http://www.infsec.cs.uni-sb.de/~unruh/publications/reflections.pdf [uni-sb.de]

And more:

http://www.eff.org/wp/detecting-packet-injection
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_remailer
http://cryptome.org/tempest-law.htm
http://seclab.uiuc.edu/pubs/LeMayT06.pdf
http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~dfrankow/files/lam-etrics2006-security.pdf
http://cryptome.org/nsa-vaneck.htm
http://www.alobbs.com/macchanger
http://lifehacker.com/software/ssh/geek-to-live--encrypt-your-web-browsing-session-with-an-ssh-socks-proxy-237227.php
http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/five_stages.html
http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-92/SP800-92.pdf
http://csrc.nist.gov/itsec/guidance_WinXP_Home.html
http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-84/SP800-84.pdf
http://all.net/books/document/harvard.html
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-keyc.html
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-keyc2/
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-keyc3/
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/emsec/optical-faq.html
http://www.cs.washington.edu/education/courses/csep590/06wi/
http://www.wiley.com/legacy/compbooks/mcnamara/links.html
http://lifeha

Read & Learn, And Legalize Marijuana

Since the article is often pulled from websites, the first article you should read and burn into your mind is this, Google for the title and archive a copy for yourself:

"A break-in to end all break-ins"
"In 1971, stolen FBI files exposed the government's domestic spying program"

It's an amazing story, and in 2008, how much has this expanded into every corner of our lives? The majority of Americans are brainwashed sheep consumers with a limp wet noodle for a brain, thrashing around with their Wii and Paris Hilton media like a fat dinoasaur in a tar pit. Stay informed, we have no privacy, encryption is good but useless with acoustic monitoring, reflections in the eye and objects in your environment, etc.! If it's electronic, there's always a loophole. You shine brighter with each electronic device you use, in many ways. Don't trust Hushmail or any web based mail service to keep anything of yours secure or to provide any reasonable degree of security. Secure your computer room and rig your computer to shut down if you use encryption like Truecrypt or other when your environment is entered by someone other than you or those you permit and trust (you shouldn't trust anyone, everyone has a price)

Compromising Reflections or How to Read LCD Monitors Around the Corner
http://www.infsec.cs.uni-sb.de/~unruh/publications/reflections.pdf [uni-sb.de]

And more:

http://www.eff.org/wp/detecting-packet-injection
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_remailer
http://cryptome.org/tempest-law.htm
http://seclab.uiuc.edu/pubs/LeMayT06.pdf
http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~dfrankow/files/lam-etrics2006-security.pdf
http://cryptome.org/nsa-vaneck.htm
http://www.alobbs.com/macchanger
http://lifehacker.com/software/ssh/geek-to-live--encrypt-your-web-browsing-session-with-an-ssh-socks-proxy-237227.php
http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/five_stages.html
http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-92/SP800-92.pdf
http://csrc.nist.gov/itsec/guidance_WinXP_Home.html
http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-84/SP800-84.pdf
http://all.net/books/document/harvard.html
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-keyc.html
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-keyc2/
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-keyc3/
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/emsec/optical-faq.html
http://www.cs.washington.edu/education/courses/csep590/06wi/
http://www.wiley.com/legacy/compbooks/mcnamara/links.html
http://lifeha

Since the article is often pulled from websites, the first article you should read and burn into your mind is this, Google for the title and archive a copy for yourself:

"A break-in to end all break-ins"
"In 1971, stolen FBI files exposed the government's domestic spying program"

It's an amazing story, and in 2008, how much has this expanded into every corner of our lives? The majority of Americans are brainwashed sheep consumers with a limp wet noodle for a brain, thrashing around with their Wii and Paris Hilton media like a fat dinoasaur in a tar pit. Stay informed, we have no privacy, encryption is good but useless with acoustic monitoring, reflections in the eye and objects in your environment, etc.! If it's electronic, there's always a loophole. You shine brighter with each electronic device you use, in many ways. Don't trust Hushmail or any web based mail service to keep anything of yours secure or to provide any reasonable degree of security. Secure your computer room and rig your computer to shut down if you use encryption like Truecrypt or other when your environment is entered by someone other than you or those you permit and trust (you shouldn't trust anyone, everyone has a price)

Compromising Reflections or How to Read LCD Monitors Around the Corner
http://www.infsec.cs.uni-sb.de/~unruh/publications/reflections.pdf

And more:

http://www.eff.org/wp/detecting-packet-injection
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_remailer
http://cryptome.org/tempest-law.htm
http://seclab.uiuc.edu/pubs/LeMayT06.pdf
http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~dfrankow/files/lam-etrics2006-security.pdf
http://cryptome.org/nsa-vaneck.htm
http://lifehacker.com/software/ssh/geek-to-live--encrypt-your-web-browsing-session-with-an-ssh-socks-proxy-237227.php
http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/five_stages.html
http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-92/SP800-92.pdf
http://csrc.nist.gov/itsec/guidance_WinXP_Home.html
http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-84/SP800-84.pdf
http://all.net/books/document/harvard.html
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-keyc.html
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-keyc2/
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-keyc3/
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/emsec/optical-faq.html
http://www.cs.washington.edu/education/courses/csep590/06wi/
http://www.wiley.com/legacy/compbooks/mcnamara/links.html
http://lifehacker.com/software/home-server/geek-to-live--set-up-a-personal-home-ssh-server-205090.php

Since the article is often pulled from websites, the first article you should read and burn into your mind is this, Google for the title and archive a copy for yourself:

"A break-in to end all break-ins"
"In 1971, stolen FBI files exposed the government's domestic spying program"

It's an amazing story, and in 2008, how much has this expanded into every corner of our lives? The majority of Americans are brainwashed sheep consumers with a limp wet noodle for a brain, thrashing around with their Wii and Paris Hilton media like a fat dinoasaur in a tar pit. Stay informed, we have no privacy, encryption is good but useless with acoustic monitoring, reflections in the eye and objects in your environment, etc.! If it's electronic, there's always a loophole. You shine brighter with each electronic device you use, in many ways. Don't trust Hushmail or any web based mail service to keep anything of yours secure or to provide any reasonable degree of security. Secure your computer room and rig your computer to shut down if you use encryption like Truecrypt or other when your environment is entered by someone other than you or those you permit and trust (you shouldn't trust anyone, everyone has a price)

Compromising Reflections or How to Read LCD Monitors Around the Corner
http://www.infsec.cs.uni-sb.de/~unruh/publications/reflections.pdf

And more:

http://www.eff.org/wp/detecting-packet-injection
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_remailer
http://cryptome.org/tempest-law.htm
http://seclab.uiuc.edu/pubs/LeMayT06.pdf
http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~dfrankow/files/lam-etrics2006-security.pdf
http://cryptome.org/nsa-vaneck.htm
http://lifehacker.com/software/ssh/geek-to-live--encrypt-your-web-browsing-session-with-an-ssh-socks-proxy-237227.php
http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/five_stages.html
http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-92/SP800-92.pdf
http://csrc.nist.gov/itsec/guidance_WinXP_Home.html
http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-84/SP800-84.pdf
http://all.net/books/document/harvard.html
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-keyc.html
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-keyc2/
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-keyc3/
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/emsec/optical-faq.html
http://www.cs.washington.edu/education/courses/csep590/06wi/
http://www.wiley.com/legacy/compbooks/mcnamara/links.html
http://lifehacker.com/software/home-server/geek-to-live--set-up-a-personal-home-ssh-server-205090.php

Since the article is often pulled from websites, the first article you should read and burn into your mind is this, Google for the title and archive a copy for yourself:

"A break-in to end all break-ins"
"In 1971, stolen FBI files exposed the government's domestic spying program"

It's an amazing story, and in 2008, how much has this expanded into every corner of our lives? The majority of Americans are brainwashed sheep consumers with a limp wet noodle for a brain, thrashing around with their Wii and Paris Hilton media like a fat dinoasaur in a tar pit. Stay informed, we have no privacy, encryption is good but useless with acoustic monitoring, reflections in the eye and objects in your environment, etc.! If it's electronic, there's always a loophole. You shine brighter with each electronic device you use, in many ways. Don't trust Hushmail or any web based mail service to keep anything of yours secure or to provide any reasonable degree of security. Secure your computer room and rig your computer to shut down if you use encryption like Truecrypt or other when your environment is entered by someone other than you or those you permit and trust (you shouldn't trust anyone, everyone has a price)

Compromising Reflections or How to Read LCD Monitors Around the Corner
http://www.infsec.cs.uni-sb.de/~unruh/publications/reflections.pdf

And more:

http://www.eff.org/wp/detecting-packet-injection
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_remailer
http://cryptome.org/tempest-law.htm
http://seclab.uiuc.edu/pubs/LeMayT06.pdf
http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~dfrankow/files/lam-etrics2006-security.pdf
http://cryptome.org/nsa-vaneck.htm
http://lifehacker.com/software/ssh/geek-to-live--encrypt-your-web-browsing-session-with-an-ssh-socks-proxy-237227.php
http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/five_stages.html
http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-92/SP800-92.pdf
http://csrc.nist.gov/itsec/guidance_WinXP_Home.html
http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-84/SP800-84.pdf
http://all.net/books/document/harvard.html
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-keyc.html
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-keyc2/
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-keyc3/
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/emsec/optical-faq.html
http://www.cs.washington.edu/education/courses/csep590/06wi/
http://www.wiley.com/legacy/compbooks/mcnamara/links.html
http://lifehacker.com/software/home-server/geek-to-live--set-up-a-personal-home-ssh-server-205090.php

So, like the subject says,
I RTFA... was like wtf, went to IBM now I'm meh...

The ComputerWorld article does a poor job to
relate the key idea behind the software and the
goal that IBM is trying to attain.

So, as I RTA, I thought... so what... Gordon Bell's
project is way ahead of this concept. Just opening
a word doc on a WinMobile phone and then taking a
picture, is roughly the grasp of the CW article.

So, knowing that IBM couldn't be involved in such
a pittance of an idea, I RTMFA from IBM themselves.

Press release from the 29th,
[ http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/24750.wss ]
'TURN DOWN YOUR SPEAKERS! Very rude audio beginning to the vid.'

So, after the video, I'm kinda, meh.

IBM is behind the curve, behind the game and just
behind with anything about life storage. Sad but true
MS and its minions are way ahead. And given my adoption
habits, a MS v IBM showdown in this arena will have me
turning over more of my devalued dollar to the empire
in Redmond.

-AI
_Plugged-in, just enough_

Hi. Use a product like FileNet Email Manager. Note that this is *NOT* and archive tool...it's a management tool that is designed to store/save your IMPORTANT emails and not the junk like "hey let's do lunch" emails. Using a tool like this IN ADDITION to your 180 day Nuke policy is great...Email Manager saves all the important emails and your 180-day policy nukes all the junk ones. It's a great tool and works with Exchange. http://www-306.ibm.com/software/data/content-management/filenet-email-manager/features.html?S_CMP=rnav Enjoy! -Fred

They are offering the majority of their software patents for free to people who offer to join the fight against patents...

"...who offer to join the fight against patents?" Riiiiiight. I think you're jamming words into IBM's mouth that it didn't put there.

IBM's donation is a standards-body/consortium licensing agreement. It works like this:

"We've made and patented many contributions to this niche. We will put ours into a pool with other contributors so that we can all use them in a cooperative manner, so long as certain conditions of development are satisfied. We'll also allow others to use the technologies and participate in the consortium if they abide to the same conditions..."

This is a traditional licensing arrangement. It helps ensure that the participants play according to some common rules - e.g., compulsory cross-licensing, such as "no one will warp the standard in a proprietary way, or refuse to cross-license their products on a reasonable basis..." etc.

These agreements only work because of the pooled patents. They ensure that participant who doesn't comply will be in breach of licenses, and will be on the hook for patent infringement damages (likely of a whole body of patents donated by many players!) If those patents did not exist, there would be no significant financial threat... and hence, no consortium. In fact, this is one of the strongest arguments in favor of patents for software (and any other technology.) It wards off "embrace, extend, extinguish" tactics and other types of anticooperative behavior.

In general, IBM is a huge fan of patent licenses - it's one of the top patent licensors in *any* field. Only a few are donated to consortiums like this - the quid pro quo of most of its licenses is a cash payment, or a cross-license of another patent, etc. Those are traditional (and widely practiced and accepted) forms of software licenses... and if anything, they support the concept of software patents - because they can be, and often are, used in a cooperative manner.

BTW - it's hardly "a majority" of its patents... it has donated 500 patents to OSS, but it typically receives over 3,000 patents annually.

- David Stein

here is the information about it http://robocode.sourceforge.net/ http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/j-robocode/

Except your scenario doesn't quite work. The man-in-the-middle would need the banks private key to complete the SSL handshake. http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/tivihelp/v2r1/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.itame2.doc_5.1/ss7aumst18.htm

Whilst you obviously know plenty about C++, you seem to know precious little about Java. For one thing, creating an object in Java is faster than in C++ because it doesn't have to malloc at all. Then there's the rather obvious counter to your example which is that it only works if I know I need a million objects ahead of time, and I know exactly which class they all need to be. What if I'm building them based on events? What if some are different types? That's a more common use case and one which your solution simply doesn't work for (unless you start allocating vast buffers just in case you need it, which is more than a little wasteful!).

A little light reading.

I have heard this claim, oh so, many times and have never seen it come to fruition except for exceptionally trivial examples
That's probably because few people take the time to write non-trivial apps in both C++ and Java to compare them. That, and benchmarks are useless. So we can't directly compare results, we have to reason about what's going on under the hood by comparing machine code. Fortunatly that isn't just possible, it's been done, and there are plenty of examples out there. But just think about it in the abstract - there's no way that a compile time optimizer could be better than a run time one, given that they both have access to the same selection of possible optimizations. The run time one will have _at least_ as good a chance of choosing the right one, and, in most cases, a considerably better chance.

is LEAN. How to get rid of American jobs.

Hmmm ... then what about all this stuff: http://www.research.ibm.com/areas.shtml

Or maybe IBM has secretly invented cell processor AI technology to produce scientific papers ... and "Dr. Who" Cybermen who present them at conferences ...

Note to self: buy more tinfoil, IBM Cybermen are just like totally *everywhere* ...

... well, that stuff about american jobs ... by a sad coincidence, some folks used to call that "Operations Research"

I actually showed that video at a LUG presentation I gave, titled "Everything You (N)Ever Wanted to Know About Hard Drives". It's funny, but does a good job explaining how it works. I also recommend IBM's video on MR and GMR disk read heads.

You might want to try explaining this to the tens of thousands of IBM employees in North America.

I think that thousands of former IBM employees in North America already know.

So explain why they're hiring?

Yes... they may have reduced their helpless desk staff, but R&D is growing

Are IBM, HP, or Sun on the scale you require. Honestly there are many, many options out there when you deal with Linux. It is no longer just an OS for hobbyists.

Can't point you to a comparison article, but one language you should consider is Scala. It compiles to the Java platform, and thus can interact almost transparently with existing Java code and libraries, and uses Erlang's concurrency model. It can do both functional and imperitive, object-oriented tasks. It's statically-typed, but with features I didn't think were possible outside a dynamic language, such as duck-typing (only compile-time checked!)

It's very powerful, but sometimes hard to figure out. Not my ideal language, but the closest I've found.

Official site:
http://www.scala-lang.org/

The busy Java developer's guide to Scala:
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/views/java/libraryview.jsp?search_by=scala+neward

Scala for Java refugees:
http://www.codecommit.com/blog/scala/roundup-scala-for-java-refugees

Supercomputers already have many more than thousands of cores. The IBM Blue Gene/P can have up to 1,048,576 cores. What Intel is probably talking about is bringing that level of parallel computing to smaller computers.

The Wall Street Journal makes press releases available for companies listed in its Company Research pages. The PR departments of these companies write the press releases, not WSJ reporters.

Good point! Here's the press release.

After 5 min of typing, my wrists hurt.

Has the possibility occured to you that you don't know how to type?

If your wrists aren't parallel to the keyboard and completely relaxed, you most likely don't. Double, if you're resting your wrists on something, and your hands and fingers are splayed up in the air like the legs of a cheap Las Vegas hooker.

If an "ergonomic" keyboard works for you, that's great. But to me, that's a lot like saying there's nothing better than a big fat comfy chair for people who like to slouch. Who can argue with that? The irony, though, is that it's only in conversations that involve keyboards where people raise such ideas, while those who play piano, cello, guitar, violin or anything else that requires accuracy, dexterity and speed for 12 hours a day have no complaints, suffer no epidemic of carpal tunnel injuries, nor show interest in theories of how deviating from established technique would improve things.

But while we're on the subject of theories, my own pet theory is that aside from the fact that few people today can be bothered to actually study typing, the height of desktops is mostly to blame. They're just too damned high. While the height does offset the too-low monitor problem, trying to type properly at that height is, if not next to impossible, then definitely problematic.

Does the hardware have a console with a network port?

Examples:
- On DELL systems, there are these DRAC cards allowing a https connection to the console.
- On SUN hardware, there is ILOM (x86) and RSC (sparc).
- IBM xSeries has this thing.
- You may be to connect a serial line to ttyA from another server to 'tip' for console, making the security a little easier. See this.
- I'm sure there are others for HP, etc...
- Fancy "KVM swicthes.
- There may even be a 3rd party PCI option

Advantages:
- Console sessions require login/pass (some even accept keys)
- You can set your firewall rule to specific IP endpoints
- Minimal cost
- Minimal techy techy knowledge
- No extra software to install

To solve your 'tail -f' requirement; run nrpe/nagios, or even simpler use *.* @loghost in /etc/syslog.conf and set the correct loghost in /etc/hosts.

I understood that you presently run X11, if that isn't necessary with a hardware option and shipping logs, you may be able to run a straight terminal on the host. Unless, of course, your number cruncher requires it.

"Microsoft is trying to tackle: accessible supercomputing"

Assuming MS was responding to this imagioned problem ..

"The contest showed that supercomputers .. are accessible to people interested in pursuing science, simulation or modeling"

"but the learning curve for getting something running on these machines is pretty intimidating, especially for non-CS based disciplines. I've had to take a 1-2 day class, plus futz around"

You actually programed a supercomouter - cool. What type and where exactly? How does HPC Server differ in respect to other solutions?

"the Blue Gene family of supercomputers has been designed to deliver ultrascale performance within a standard programming environment"

"Hopefully Microsoft can spur the industry in this direction"

You mean like continually inventing Apple, badly .. :)

I'd say that Project Management involves juggling three things - Schedule, Scope and Budget (think of it as a triangle).

It is common to include a fourth factor, quality - thus making it a pyramid.

I'd say that Project Management involves juggling three things - Schedule, Scope and Budget (think of it as a triangle).

It is common to include a fourth factor, quality - thus making it a pyramid.

Regarding Deep Blue's approach to chess: we reduced it to brute force. I believe it was nothing more than a insanely large minimax tree at heart. However, we have moved beyond brute force techniques in some areas. If one defines an 'AI Problem' as one that has been solved by means of an adaptive algorithm when the problem could not have otherwise been solved by a human-created algorithm then there are a lot of AI problems out there. In the board game field, look at TD-Gammon; it is very similar to Deep Blue in that a computer played the world champion and defeated the human, but the TD-Gammon program used AI techniques and actually learned to play by inference. Cool stuff.

here you go.

The AS400 is a minicomputer, but your point is correct, IBM offers Linux as an OS option on mainframe. I'm not sure if the parent meant Linux on x86 won't replace mainframes or that Linux and mainframes are mutually exclusive.

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-flash-filesystems/

This article sure has been shopped around a bit hasn't it:

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/views/linux/libraryview.jsp?end_no=100&lcl_sort_order=desc&type_by=Articles&sort_order=desc&show_all=false&sort_by=Relevance&search_by=anatomy+of&topic_by=All+topics+and+related+products&search_flag=true&show_abstract=true&S_TACT=105AGX59&S_CMP=GR

You mean the tri-core PPC CPU developed by the IBM Engineering & Technology Services group?

Yes. I'm sure that's the chip Microsoft supposedly designed.

This was covered last year, and the Los Alamos website had a few interviews with some people involved on what the uses of Roadrunner are. They had a time-line of what phases are to be done, and as far as memory serves me, they were going with Opterons for the first phase, then performance assessment, then add the Cell processors in the third phase.

From these pictures, it clearly shows they're using IBM Blades (4 chassis in each rack), and IBM already offers BladeQ servers which use Cell processors for HPC applications. The IBM BladeQ servers pack double the CPUs of a PS3.

• "Of course, a feature like face recognition invites play, and what better way to play than to try and fool the software.

  First up was an 8 x 10 color glossy photograph of yours truly (with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back). No matter how I held the photograph, no matter whether the security settings were set high or at their lowest setting, no matter what angle I held the photo, I was not able to use it to log onto the system. The result was exactly what I had expected - that the software was smart enough to distinguish a face from a picture of a face."

• "Depending on the software used, face recognition uses multiple techniques to identify a person's face. Some of the more advanced programs use texture mapping in which a person's skin texture is analyzed and matched. Most however, define nodal points on a person's face and then use software to mathematically represent those points. Things measured include distance between the eyes, width of the nose, length of the jaw line, or shape of the cheekbones. Together these concatenate a numerical code which is stored in a database for later retrieval.

  One particular aspect of the software Lenovo uses is rather freaky. When you sit down in front of the camera, the system generates two white dots that follow your eyes. Of course, this is completely harmless and is nothing more than a few white pixels shown on screen."

Why isn't this kind of "security" generally laughed at by the consumers?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LA4Xx5Noxyo http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/05/16/gummi_bears_defeat_fingerprint_sensors/

• Can fingerprint readers be fooled by hackers?

  There are a number of known attacks against fingerprint readers. Some are rather intricate, such as building a fake finger out of something like ballistic gel or soft plastic. Currently, there are no known attacks against capacitive slide technology, which is what our Fingerprint Reader offerings are based on. The sensor manufacturers keep on top of these attacks and continually update their devices to resist them.