Slashdot Mirror

• A little history of the annual commemorations of the first transatlantic wireless transmission. The very bottom of the page has information on recent years.
  Dr. Zedel taught me Ocean Acoustics last semester...
  
• The Instrumentation, Control and Automation lab on the floor below me is organizing a radio-building contest for high-school students.
  
• The Italian site already linked elsewhere in the comments.
  

You might consider an aliasing service. Back in the pre-broadband days I was switching ISP's like mad to find the best pings. I finally got a Bigfoot account that with a bigfoot email address that would forward email to any address I gave it. Worked great.

I quit using them when IEEE started offering the same service free to members. I understand that since then Bigfoot has gone to a pay or get Spam system but it's worth considering.

(Sorry for the double post.) To clarify my previous post, I just wanted to note that the term "ethernet" really is very broad, so saying "it's ethernet," is frought with problems. Just in the physical layer...is it 10BASE-T, 10BASE-FL, 100BASE-TX, 100BASE-FX, 1000BASE-T, 1000BASE-SX/CX/LX, 10GBASE-?, etc? All of these fall under IEEE 802.3 CSMA/CD (aka "Ethernet").

Part of the problem is that there is no agreed-upon implementation. The POSIX group could not choose between X/Open's catgets implementation and GNU's gettext, and as such, left it out of the standard entirely. Another problem with both toolsets is that neither presents a truly extensible strings database format. If you need to add additional storage fields to the strings database for a language other than C, you're out of luck if you plan to use the library and tools on the same files. Very short-sighted IMHO.

On IEEE Steven Cherry takes a look at the effectiveness of current ID cards.

On IEEE Steven Cherry takes a look at the effectiveness of current ID cards.

They probably own an IEEE assigned range (which is the proper way to obtain MAC addresses for Ethernet interfaces see this link) and their software responds based upon that knowledge.

So the software really doesn't send a DHCP respond for only one MAC, but a range.

FYI: Diamond Multimedia owns 00-90-00 (which allows them to have 16,777,216 unique addresses).

Dont't forget 802.11i

802.11c

802.11d

802.11e

802.11f

802.11h is already under development!

Disclaimer: I really don't know what any of this stuff is, I just searched on google.

802.11c

802.11d

802.11e

802.11f

802.11h is already under development!

Disclaimer: I really don't know what any of this stuff is, I just searched on google.

802.11c

802.11d

802.11e

802.11f

802.11h is already under development!

Disclaimer: I really don't know what any of this stuff is, I just searched on google.

802.11c

802.11d

802.11e

802.11f

802.11h is already under development!

Disclaimer: I really don't know what any of this stuff is, I just searched on google.

does this mean that they can be wired back to back to create spray on transistors? Ultracheap custom chips

Spray on transistors are almost there. (The linked article mentions some spray on circuitry but the (fast) transistors are rubber-stamped, they're still working on spraying those). The folks described here are doing spray-on polymer transistors.

Hmm, couple the LEDs, the transistors and some good optical sensors and you can make yourself a cloak of invisibility...

about the 4004 development, right here - they were Intel's customer at the time.

If you dig PR, then head to 802.11 Planet. You'll get all the corporate lubing you could ever hope for.

802.11a is not new, it's been around since 1999. Check the IEEE website. They have the document available for free download.

If you dig PR, then head to 802.11 Planet. You'll get all the corporate lubing you could ever hope for.

802.11a is not new, it's been around since 1999. Check the IEEE website. They have the document available for free download.

For some of these, there's always Yahoo!, which seems to have a good number of links in this directory.

Also the Online History of Computers seems alright.

If you're willing to spend a few bucks, you might invest in some of the titles in the IEEE Bibliography. LoL.

IEEE 802.11b Working Group

In geek speak, the IEEE 802.11b standard is the family of specifications created by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc. for wireless, Ethernet local area networks in 2.4 gigahertz bandwidth space. The rest of us English-language users should think of IEEE 802.11b as a way to connect our computers and other gadgets to each other and to the Internet at very high speed without any cumbersome wiring--or a significant price tag. Providing as much wireless speed as it does at its modest price promises to have profound implications for a world bent of anytime/anywhere communication.

Without any cumbersome wiring, yeah, or pesky security or annoying encryption. What about the profounf implications of that. You really have to wonder what they were thinking.

Having worked at one of his startups, I can honestly say that he is a complete tool of the VCs.
I'm shocked that he would dare to say that people are important. He lied point-blank to all of the "people" in the company for a year, while enforcing the directives of the board.
If you want to see a really good veiw of the VC system, see this article.

FUD is a fact of life. As a hacker I don't like FUD, either, but it should be clear that you can't fight Microsoft FUD with conventional or even logical arguments. FUD, sadly, is the only way to go.

Microsoft is scared shitless about open source, and what it can do to its unethical monopoly. Calling Microsoft's FUD for what it is hasn't even made them flinch. The only thing that management listens to, after all, is FUD, so what reason should stop Open Source from making FUD arguments against the Evil Empire?

Let's face it, people in management and people who don't know better have only emotions to rely upon. I don't see anything particulary wrong with creating some FUD to cloud those emotions and make them look at the facts that Microsoft is run by a megalomaniac who wants to have legal authority to basically become the first global internet government, supported by taxes like renewable licensing.

It's at least enough of a real concern that people are studying it in an academic environment and presenting results on it to IEEE forums.

I also found this one, which is substantially more informative and complete:
http://www.wi-fi.com/downloads/Coexistence_Paper_I ntersil_Aug18.pdf. This is a good discussion, which seems to conclude that yes, they do interfere to an extent, but performance degradation is graceful, though it apparently depends greatly on the amount of usage Bluetooth is getting (density of Bluetooth traffic in the locale of an 802.11b access point).

These are my favorite resources on this subject...

Bluetooth Resource Center

A Businessman's Comparison of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi (802.11b)

Empirical Study for IEEE 802.11 Aand Bluetooth Interoperability (PDF)

Wi-Fi will not make Bluetooth obsolete

The current issue of IEEE Spectrum has a one of its big articles on Biological Warfare Detectors. The article is available at http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/publicfeature /oct01/bio.html.

A little ironic that they put together this article before September 11th.

oop's a space popped up in the middle, sorry

You can avoid the problem by embeding the link in an html anchor tag and specify "HTML formatted" instead of Plain Old Text:

Here's the link

At least, I've never had a problem.

The IEEE is making all the 802 standards available for free on their web site. Have a look at http://standards.ieee.org/getieee802/ for details.

Trouble is, as things stand they do interfere, a lot of work has been done on this. FHSS (including 802.11 FH devices) can ruin the performance of a well-tuned DHSS running in the band. IEEE 802.15 TG2 is working on mitigating this in Bluetooth by firmware changes to existing/new kit to reduce likelihood of both transmitting at the same time. Plus in the US, FCC has recently approved changes to band usage that will allow FHSS (incl. Bluetooth) to be more adaptive. Looks like there may be a path to allow OFDM on 2.4GHz soon too (I'd be interested to know if anyone has read anything on OFDM/BT interop? I guess it stands better chance than DSSS since it's multiple carrier - maybe there is still a chance for 802.11g...)

Start here if you want to know more...let's just hope that any modifications to Bluetooth required are done now before many mobile phones are sold. It is next to impossible to get firmware updated on non-tech consumer kit once it's out in the wild (unless there are other, show-stopper, bugs which stop the phone from working correctly - ha, like that's never happened before has it Nokia... ;)

Funny really, I'd have thought Bluetooth would have been better suited to 5GHz. The higher bandwidth available would be useful (both to increase speed and keep bursts short), and the lower range that's possible isn't such a problem for the intended use of Bluetooth.

Of course, 3G licensees and their mobile phone/infrastructure/cash injection suppliers who don't really want free-net hippies eroding the geek local bandwidth market share - after all they have hospitals and cheap booze to pay for - have their own agendas when deciding what tech to push in what band.

Mind you, it's not all bad - personally I'd be quite a bit more interested to see this kind of tech used for the backbone - a neighbourhood is much easier to wire than a long distance link... to get this kind of DX you'll be using fairly tight beams, much less subject to interference, and as long as Bluetooth can be made to tread a little less heavily over local 802.11b base-station installations than it has in the past and share the band fairly then the current generation of cheap(ish) WLAN kit will still be useful and there will be much fun to be had by all...

I hope it does get sorted, things like this could be very cool and while I really don't think d*mned wireless mobile phone headsets are worth the use of free spectrum (*why* can't this kind of thing be run out of *licensed* band if it's run by a commercial service! there should be plenty of that available for lowpower...) I live in hope that everyone'll be able to live together, not stomp all over each other's signal and be happy...

(:

I believe that in comparison to other educational institutions, MIT is quite a bit more enlightened, giving inventors 1/3 of any licensing revenues (at least in some departments). Universities like USF (hint: a place probably best avoided by smart students) have their student inventors thrown in jail if they want the exclusive rights to a promising invention.

As for these specific patents, it would be interesting to know what they are for: do they really represent interesting inventions, or is it the kind of patent that claims "any television that uses a framebuffer and a CPU".

Engineers should band together to form venture funds. Start-ups need more angel funding and they need better-organized angel funding. I'd like to see a dozen or so $100 million venture funds run by nerds. These nerd-based venture firms would work at the seed round and at the next funding round (called the A round). They provide initial funding and advice and they, with the benefit of professional financial advice, represent their start-ups in future funding negotiations with traditional venture firms.

This is basically what my firm, Alacrity Ventures, does. We started after the sale of Consensus Development (who wrote the reference implementations of SSL 3.0 and TLS 1.0) to Certicom. We are not a $100M fund -- only the personal investments of the founders. In over two and a half years of investing, we have yet to have a single company go under, which in these troubled times I believe to be a spectacular record.

However, after investing in over a dozen companies, I have discovered that there are some real reasons why VC's behave the way they do. We too have fallen into some of the behaviors that are described in the article, as much as we resent and dislike them.

It turns out that there are some very interesting economic, sociological, and psychologal reasons why the VCs fill a particular economic niche and why it very difficult to find alternatives. These reasons range from how many startups a person can be really involved in at a time, the economic incentives of associates to become partners, the pressures of repeatedly raising money for the next fund from publically accountable entities, the 'sharks' at the mezzanine rounds, etc.

Here's a third suggestion. I'd like to see an engineer-run start-up whose goal is to raise $100 million in a public offering. The money becomes a fund for sponsoring start-ups. It's a public venture firm and it sells shares to raise money. Investing in start-ups wouldn't be exclusively for rich people; anyone who could buy stock could be investing in start-ups. Ideally, the public VC firm would be managed and run by nerds with empathy for nerds in the start-ups.

This is what CMGI and a couple of other companies did, and they are failing spectacularly. There is a real price for public funding, one of which is that you are constantly beholden to sweet talk to the investment community every quarter, and they don't want to talk to an engineer CEO, they want to talk to someone who speaks their language.

It might still be possible -- we done a lot of thinking about it at Alacrity Ventures, but it is unlikely we'd use a public stock model. Instead, something that is more like a mutal investment fund might be possible.

If anyone is interested in talking about the topic of "Why VCs Behave the Way They Do" further, or on ways to create a different kind of VC investment firm, I'd be glad to talk to them.

-- Christopher Allen
Alacrity Ventures
www.alacrityventures.com

developing photolithography
More of the above
Process description
A summer photolithography project

developing photolithography
More of the above
Process description
A summer photolithography project

Well, yeah, you are missing something. The IEEE just ratified the standard and furthered it with their working group. It was Apple's work originally.

Good stuff, but to clarify some of your points...

2. Bluetooth and 802.11b interoperability. Without breaking one standard or the other, it ain't going to happen. And even if you do break one standard, it won't be backwards compatible. The two standards conflict too much. 802.11b has a back-off mechanism. Bluetooth doesn't. I actually did some work looking into building a Bluetooth/802.11b AP that would try to cleanly give both Bluetooth and 802.11b time on the air without breaking either standard. It's too difficult. Bluetooth is just to strict on the timing (not to mention the big problem that some Bluetooth cards refuse to give up being the Master).

This is due to the Frequency Hopping (FH, as apposed to DS, Direct Sequence) nature of Bluetooth. It could be possible to build a dual-mode (or since you have an FH mode transmitter, tri-mode, as the original 802.11 spec allowed for FH or DS Spread Spectrum) that would do this, but it would definately have to be ONE CARD, as the transmitter/receiver sections would need to know exactly what frequencies are in use and avoid them. A dual card system simply would not be able to keep up.

Such dual radio systems have been proposed (Bluetooth FH/802.11b DS, and 802.11 FH/802.11b DS), but the costs associated with making such a beast, even after the initial development work - which is severly costly in itself, are horribly expensive, totally outweighing the benefits of such a device.

It is also interesting to note that the 802.15 TG2 group is working for co-existance. This is not the same as interoperability, but simply handling the presence of other signals on the same frequency band. For those that dont know, 802.15 is the IEEE sanitised version of Bluetooth.

3. 802.11 security was not broken. WEP was broken. Badly. But WEP is not the end-all, be-all of security. And yes, the industry _is_ working on better security, and has been for some time. IEEE 802.11 Task Group e is still in the process of agreeing upon a method for point-to-point security, with dynamically session keys, including a username/password setup. This is what the industry has wanted for some time. WEP was only meant to slow down the script kiddies who would just sit in parking lots with their cards set to associate to "ANY". I really wish people would stop assuming that WEP is the entirety of wireless security. It is not, and was never intended to be. One more note on this: it was not 802.11x that was broken. I'm not sure what 802.11x is, but it isn't a security standard. 802.1x is a LAN security standard, but even that isn't what was broken. Just WEP.

This is spot on the ball. The new standard they are working on sounds like it will be called 802.11i. The TGe group , which was working on MAC layer enhancements, decided to split into 2 task-groups, where the E group is to follow Quality of Service (QoS), and the I group is to follow Security. These were originally to be one standard, and breaking them up into 2 seperate standards IMHO is a GOOD THING.(tm)

Of note here is that most, if not all Access Points can be set up to NOT allow Mobile Units with no *SSID set to bind to them. They can still snoop on some data (it's their card receiving it), but it just takes them that little bit longer. Some Access Points allow you to provide Access Control lists for particular MAC Addresses of Mobile Units, which is a damn good idea if you have a reasonable number of mobile units. Remember: They can always listen in somehow, but wether they can access your network is another matter entirely.

4. 802.11, 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11. 802.11 is the general IEEE group for Wireless LAN networking. 802.11b is the 11Mbps standard. 802.11a is the 5GHz 54Mbps standard (once they decide exactly what that standard is). TGe, which should translate to 802.11e will be the new security standard. There are others (including a standard for 22Mbps in the 2.4GHz band, which I _think_ is 802.11h), but I don't remember what most of them are.

As I mentioned, TGe has been split into 2 groups. The TGg group is working on 22+ Mbps standards in the 2.4 Ghz range, and currently look to be using Orthagonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (or OFDM, which is different again from DS and FH). More information about the 802.11 Standards can be found at the 802.11 Standards homepage at the IEEE.

Of note: OFDM looks to be the new 'holy grail' in not only wireless, but optical, and possibly even wired technology, as it allows much more of the usable "available" spectrum to be utilised for data transmission, with higher signal to noise ratio's. The 3G Cellular standards looks like they will be using OFDM, and new optical technologies that Lucent are trying to get off the ground will also be using it.

Good stuff, but to clarify some of your points...

2. Bluetooth and 802.11b interoperability. Without breaking one standard or the other, it ain't going to happen. And even if you do break one standard, it won't be backwards compatible. The two standards conflict too much. 802.11b has a back-off mechanism. Bluetooth doesn't. I actually did some work looking into building a Bluetooth/802.11b AP that would try to cleanly give both Bluetooth and 802.11b time on the air without breaking either standard. It's too difficult. Bluetooth is just to strict on the timing (not to mention the big problem that some Bluetooth cards refuse to give up being the Master).

This is due to the Frequency Hopping (FH, as apposed to DS, Direct Sequence) nature of Bluetooth. It could be possible to build a dual-mode (or since you have an FH mode transmitter, tri-mode, as the original 802.11 spec allowed for FH or DS Spread Spectrum) that would do this, but it would definately have to be ONE CARD, as the transmitter/receiver sections would need to know exactly what frequencies are in use and avoid them. A dual card system simply would not be able to keep up.

Such dual radio systems have been proposed (Bluetooth FH/802.11b DS, and 802.11 FH/802.11b DS), but the costs associated with making such a beast, even after the initial development work - which is severly costly in itself, are horribly expensive, totally outweighing the benefits of such a device.

It is also interesting to note that the 802.15 TG2 group is working for co-existance. This is not the same as interoperability, but simply handling the presence of other signals on the same frequency band. For those that dont know, 802.15 is the IEEE sanitised version of Bluetooth.

3. 802.11 security was not broken. WEP was broken. Badly. But WEP is not the end-all, be-all of security. And yes, the industry _is_ working on better security, and has been for some time. IEEE 802.11 Task Group e is still in the process of agreeing upon a method for point-to-point security, with dynamically session keys, including a username/password setup. This is what the industry has wanted for some time. WEP was only meant to slow down the script kiddies who would just sit in parking lots with their cards set to associate to "ANY". I really wish people would stop assuming that WEP is the entirety of wireless security. It is not, and was never intended to be. One more note on this: it was not 802.11x that was broken. I'm not sure what 802.11x is, but it isn't a security standard. 802.1x is a LAN security standard, but even that isn't what was broken. Just WEP.

This is spot on the ball. The new standard they are working on sounds like it will be called 802.11i. The TGe group , which was working on MAC layer enhancements, decided to split into 2 task-groups, where the E group is to follow Quality of Service (QoS), and the I group is to follow Security. These were originally to be one standard, and breaking them up into 2 seperate standards IMHO is a GOOD THING.(tm)

Of note here is that most, if not all Access Points can be set up to NOT allow Mobile Units with no *SSID set to bind to them. They can still snoop on some data (it's their card receiving it), but it just takes them that little bit longer. Some Access Points allow you to provide Access Control lists for particular MAC Addresses of Mobile Units, which is a damn good idea if you have a reasonable number of mobile units. Remember: They can always listen in somehow, but wether they can access your network is another matter entirely.

4. 802.11, 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11. 802.11 is the general IEEE group for Wireless LAN networking. 802.11b is the 11Mbps standard. 802.11a is the 5GHz 54Mbps standard (once they decide exactly what that standard is). TGe, which should translate to 802.11e will be the new security standard. There are others (including a standard for 22Mbps in the 2.4GHz band, which I _think_ is 802.11h), but I don't remember what most of them are.

As I mentioned, TGe has been split into 2 groups. The TGg group is working on 22+ Mbps standards in the 2.4 Ghz range, and currently look to be using Orthagonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (or OFDM, which is different again from DS and FH). More information about the 802.11 Standards can be found at the 802.11 Standards homepage at the IEEE.

Of note: OFDM looks to be the new 'holy grail' in not only wireless, but optical, and possibly even wired technology, as it allows much more of the usable "available" spectrum to be utilised for data transmission, with higher signal to noise ratio's. The 3G Cellular standards looks like they will be using OFDM, and new optical technologies that Lucent are trying to get off the ground will also be using it.

Unlike what some people have said above, 802.11 is only wireless. 802 includes other LAN standards -- Ethernet, Token Ring, etc. At IEEE you can see the complete list of IEEE 802 Working Groups and a detailed summary of 802.11 work groups.

Some of them are:

• 802.11b - up to 11Mbps at 2.4GHz (also marketed as "Wi-Fi")
• 802.11g - up to 22Mbps at 2.4GHz
• 802.11a - up to 54Mbps at 5GHz

Unlike what some people have said above, 802.11 is only wireless. 802 includes other LAN standards -- Ethernet, Token Ring, etc. At IEEE you can see the complete list of IEEE 802 Working Groups and a detailed summary of 802.11 work groups.

Some of them are:

• 802.11b - up to 11Mbps at 2.4GHz (also marketed as "Wi-Fi")
• 802.11g - up to 22Mbps at 2.4GHz
• 802.11a - up to 54Mbps at 5GHz

Unlike what some people have said above, 802.11 is only wireless. 802 includes other LAN standards -- Ethernet, Token Ring, etc. At IEEE you can see the complete list of IEEE 802 Working Groups and a detailed summary of 802.11 work groups.

Some of them are:

• 802.11b - up to 11Mbps at 2.4GHz (also marketed as "Wi-Fi")
• 802.11g - up to 22Mbps at 2.4GHz
• 802.11a - up to 54Mbps at 5GHz

Contrast this with the normal practice when a freelancer sells an article to a magazine. Usually, the writer only sells the first serial publication rights, giving the magazine just enough rights to publish the article. The author retains all the other rights, including the right to republish elsewhere.

When I discussed this with a working magazine writer some years back, she was amazed at the lousy deal academic periodicals give their authors. You get a better deal when the magazine pays you.

In the EE and CE fields, the main journal publisher is the IEEE. I'm pretty sure that they do not claim exclusive rights to publish research, or if they do, everyone in the field ignores it. The result is that many researchers (myself included) post all their publications on their web pages, which increases access and exposure to important works in the field. Furthermore, it permits free document search engines based on these web posts, such as Citeseer. The net result is, if you take any IEEE publication, and type the title in your favourite search engine, you will find a link to a free copy of the paper about 30-40% of the time (and this proportion is growing). I can't imagine a scientific discipline in which this wasn't done.

Low budgets, encouraging volunteer participants -- now that's the way to run a space program!

An extreme version of this philosophy is central to the Portland State Aerospace Society, Portland State University's group operating under the auspices of the IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society (AESS). Check out in particular our ongoing work on our Inertial Navigation System, which currently costs out at around $500. All of our work is open source, and is specifically targeted at usability by other amateur rocketry groups.

I just don't pay for garbage web content. Sites like slashdot are just a waste of bandwith for the most part. They rarely provide any new and/or useful information.

On the flip side I do pay for access to assorted electronics databook and publication sites as well as buy a lot of books. For instance the IEEE page is worth the money. The Intel Developer site is worth paying for as is the National Semiconductor site but they are free because these sites make their money selling the product. The techical documentation is an aid in use.

There is another type of site that makes money on the internet. Its the type of site that provides a REAL service. These are sites like REALTOR.com, bill payer services, job search services, dating services, etc that work well on the web.

The problem with the web is this pay for bandwith scheme that is kicking everyone in the butt. Take internet radio for instance. You could be part of a band co-op and try to put your music on the web. If your site becomes popular though you could potentially be paying a whole crapload to serve the content. With IPv6 you only pay for a miniscule amount of bandwith required to send a single stream which gets broken up by the multicast routers. Sites like slashdot which are dynamic couldn't benifit from this because they try to tailor their views for every user. A nice idea, but completly useless when you compare the cost of running a site that doesn't provide a useful service and the tons of bandwith required to give ever user a unique experience. Slashdot could provide 99% of the user experience with just static content that could be cached in web caches.

Bias alert: I work for Progressive. Adjust your filters accordingly.

The insurance company will put this in my car and monitor it and know my every move. How fast I go. Where I go, when and how often.

The program (called "Autograph", and only rolled out in Texas IIRC) was based on the idea that your premium would be pay-as-you-go. Park the car for a month, premium drops. Drive lots of miles at high speeds at night and garage in high-risk areas, pay accordingly.

Not only is this an invasion of privacy, I would suspect I would get worse insurance rates than I am getting now instead of better.

How can something that's voluntary be an invasion of privacy? As for your rates going up, that depends on your driving habits. Which was the whole idea, you pay according to the risk of your driving habits.

I'm not involved in the project, I don't know how well it did or if it's going to be ongoing. But I think it's an innovative idea.

Here is a short article about it from the IEEE. Punching "progressive insurance autograph gps" into google will return lots more.

These experts point out that if gasoline were not already established as an irreplaceable part of modern life, it would probably never be approved as a fuel in today's regulatory environment. Hydrogen, although not nearly as dangerous, has scared people ever since the Hindenburg airship disaster more than half a century ago. When hydrogen leaks, the gas tends to rise and dissipate, unlike heavy gasoline vapors, which tend to gather in low places and wait for unsuspecting victims to touch them off.

Article

Carefully watch the footage of the Hindenburg and you'll note it was the canvas and it's coating which is the significant source of flames after the first second. The hydrogen wasn't the problem.

Metal-based fuel cells (using aluminum or zinc) may prove a better solution than hydrogen, providing better energy densities and less hazardous handling.

There's a relevant and interesting article in IEEE Spectrum this month.

Metal-based fuel cells (using aluminum or zinc) may prove a better solution than hydrogen, providing better energy densities and less hazardous handling.

There's a relevant and interesting article in IEEE Spectrum this month.

Not long ago Robert Lucky of Telcordia, who is a frequent columnist in IEEE Spectrum, wrote an article noting that technology predictions are worthless; that in his words, we're all just "bozos on the bus" waiting to see where technology will take us next. Even if someone "predicted" the impact of the internet ten or twenty years ago, because technology is so nonlinear, there's no reason why that same person's predictions today are any more valid than yours or mine.

Does anyone else remember this article? Any links?

That being said, there are times when I've wanted to speak with many voices (which is one of the reasons for my Slashdot account), and have no real recourse. I think that a real, legally sanctioned _professional_ organization would go a long way to help some of my problems (like being here since 3:00am this morning). Something like what the denstists or doctors have - not really a Union that has barganing units and such, but an org that can sanction shops that don't treat their IT workers properly.

What about the ACM or the IEEE? I don't believe they sanction employers per se, but letting one's fellow computer professionals know about employers who suck seems well within the spirit of both organizations' codes of ethics to me. All there needs to be (if there isn't one already) is some mechanism to go beyond word of mouth to an official "the ACM or IEEE says you suck" declaration.

The "well-known" part is key, if the school is not well-known then there's probably not much value, and if it is your email address could backfire. For example, a Harvard alum email address would be well-known, but could come across as arrogant. On the other hand, if I gave out a name@alum.purdue.edu email address, would someone think "Guess he couldn't get into MIT" or "Purdue didn't admit me, I hate this guy"? This is why I prefer affiliating with a professional organization, and use my IEEE email address.

Try this.