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Cringely made this same mistake the first part of his weekly article http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20030814. html. It's not always the "network" guys that are responsible for system patches and client firewall. Especially not in large companies.

I thought that the internet was supposed to be redundant (like power)... i thought they learned on sept 11, that there wasnt enough capacity on the cell networks

We had a presentation last night from Tom O'Rourke on the critical infrastructure affected by Sept 11 2001.

The main point to come out of it is that most critical infrastructure is commercially run. They are designed to run and handle typical peak loading.

And there is a difference between redundancy and surge capacity. Redundancy allows you to continue operating at a reduced or normal level. Surge capacity allows you to operate at increased levels due to an unexpected event - such as handling increased mobile phone demand by increasing available spectrum bandwidth as was also done after Sept 11 2001.

The problem that you have in these sort of failures is that not only have you lost capacity, but you see increased demand at the same time. One slide he had detailed cell phones in NYC. Typical block rate (no tone) is about 4% - ie one in 25 calls you can't make. After losing all the capacity after the collapse, combined with everyone wanting to talk on their phones, the blocked call rate jumped to 92%. The expense required handle these sort of extreme events cannot be justified.

Utilities can handle ordinary spikes in their systems, but it is not economic to design surge capacity into most systems.

You'll find this problem across a number of sectors... telecommunications, power, and hospital beds tend to provide the best examples. You'd be suprised at how few hospital beds are generally available at any given point in time.

If we had a mass casualty event in New Zealand, it is quite possible we would be sending victims to hospitals in Australia because we don't have the surge capacity.

Cheers Gav

Cringely wrote an article along the same line over two years ago, during the California energy "crisis". His idea is to cache energy generated at night into cells stored at people's houses for use during peak demand in the daytime.

What Cringely will do with a couple of pringle can yagis and this technology - he could probably reach Chicago!

Richard Clarke, former "Counterterrorism Czar" has been raising the possibility of computer hackers playing a role in this.

I suppose that largescale hacking might be considered "terorrism" nowdays, but it more likely some 10th grade Trinity-wannabe. It's certainly a plausiblity that non-paranoid types should consider.

No online reference, but here he discusses the technical weakness of the power control system.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/08/16/blackout.chron.ap /index.html
The timely coincidence between MSBLAST and power blackout is certainly _there_.

http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/333505/2003 -08-13/2003-08-19/0
http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/333513/2003 -08-13/2003-08-19/0
http://www.automationtechies.com/sitepages/pid641. php

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cybe rwar/view/
aspecially watch video #4. Just after 911 a cyber terroristic attack againts the powergrid was warned for by Gen. Clark from the Pentagon and other cyber security officials.

Robert

Nikola Tesla suggested a *wireless* worldwide power grid around (IIRC) 50 years earlier, and demonstrated the technology to make it posssible.

"Prions are proteins that occur in the brains of all mammals so far studied. The normal function of prion proteins is not understood, but recent research on mice that lack the PrP gene -- which encodes the prion protein -- suggest that it protects the brain against dementia and other degenerative problems associated with old age. Sometimes, 'rogue' prions are produced by genetic mutations. This explains why some cases of CJD in humans are inherited."

http://www.mad-cow.org/~tom/prion_evol.html

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/madcow/prions.html

"...Second Amendment was to protect the regime both from outside and inside dangers, that it's worked for over two centuries so far and that it's something unheard of in modern history."

Besides that, I have been reading up on U.S. history and found a list of U.S. conflicts in the past, which gave me the basis in searching for the events of the U.S.-Mexican War and the Spanish-American War. From what I have read so far the U.S., having the ideology of a "manifest destiny", was close to a colonial state as it tries to "embrace other countries into its loving arms" so to speak. With this in mind, it seems that the U.S. had no direct outside threat that needed protecting against, in which the 2nd amendment was put to use but an inside conflict: the civil war. Some can say that the Civil war might not have been as long and bloody as it was if the there wasn't a 2nd amendment since in this case the 2nd amendment was used to protect the citizens from the same threat which strenthened because of the 2nd amendment. That meant that the 2nd Amendment was "improperly" from what the Founding Fathers intended it for by being used by people who benefitted from the tyrannical control of slaves, which was abolished by the government, instead of being used to defend against a tyrannical government.

If what I wrote was true (and please correct me if I am wrong) the 2nd amendment did not "work" to protect the U.S. from outside threat because it did not have an outside threat to protect itself against. In the Civil War's case, the 2nd amendment protected people from itself which makes it seem more redundant and being worst instead of superior and helped lengthened what could of been a shorter war if the citizens did not have a strong bond to own a weapon because it was a constutionally protected right. This is all based of course on your original statement that it "...it's worked...." before protecting the U.S.

I am interested in your point of view being a resident (I believe) of the U.S. Thanks.

BTW, I just like to say that I dislike the post which are not insightful and has an insulting, close-minded mood. This devoids the purpose of a debate.

Likewise, all that waste is sitting around in pools (though warm as they are, I wouldn't want to swim in them) because Carter signed an executive order banning reprocessing (known as Presidential Directive 8, subsequently reaffirmed as President Clinton's Presidential Directive 13.) There are certainly issues to consider with reprocessing, but it's a fact that we wouldn't have all this nuclear waste lying around if we recycled it into useful component elements.

Interesting discussion:
PBS Frontline
University of Minnesota Technology newsletter

There was a post on bugtraq about the possiblity that the blackout was caused by blaster since a SCADA-system(*) used RPC.

PBS Cyberwar has some intresting information about the possiblity of an attack against these kind of systems.

The effect of a large attack against infrastructure such as powergrids and waterplants together with more "normal" terrorist ways such as suicide-bombers and carbombs paints a frightning picture.

(*) SCADA : supervisory-control and data-acquisition systems that utility companies use to remotely monitor and control their operations.

frontline has an online show about cyberwar with a segment describing the vulnerability of the power grid.

Actually, ice ages are themselves subdivided into colder and warmer periods. As this article explains, the earth was completely ice-free for a large part of its history. Our current ice age only started some 60 million years ago.

PBS had a special on this back in 2000. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/diamond/

It looks like the big breakthrough is the CVD technique. The old Russian design had the problem of letting in too much nitrogen and creating only yellow diamonds. They have improved the technique but it is still harder to make clear diamonds. I read that they were going after the colored market since colored natural diamonds are more expensive. Plus it must be easier to add color with new elements than remove all the yellow. (They can add different elements to get different colors.) Expect the market in colored diamonds (especially yellow) to get cheap. (Kobe should have waited...) Of course the real volume is in clear diamonds. Hopefully the CVD technique can make cheap clear diamonds. I know they said $5 a carat, but I wouldn't trust Wired.

on NOVA a few years back..

It dealt with the technology behind these diamond presses.

As I remember, they were still having trouble with microscopic CO2 bubbles being trapped in the formed diamonds, which made the product pretty much worthless.

Pretty cool how much the process has improved.

Boston Tea Party

Well, it was taxes and tea in those days that had the people all miffed... could it be things like copyrights and DMCA, coupled with the frustration of not being able to enforce your needs that push people over the edge these days?

Follow the money trail!!! backwards....

Trillion Dollar Bet

Easy come, easy go! For those that got in early and as such were able to get out in time, needed to put their gains somewhere. Dotcoms were certainly a popular place to do so.

Those who didn't get in soon enough to get out in time resulted in our Enrons and Worldcoms...

And the negative result on S.E. Asia....

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction..... Here it was likely a second and successful attack on the WTC in addition to targets of military intelligence and political control... leading up to ...... well if you don't know you must be living under a rock.. Cept for maybe the the part of where MS got off of punishment of federal criminal guilty findings in what appears to be in exchange for training the government how to lie and mislead the public via media (media that was attacked and threatened with anthrax produced by the US military, in the states)

Soooo, this money that the supposed tech savy have to lobby government..... It's blood money...

Interesting how in the bigger picture it certanly seems that deception begets deception in it's self supported dependancy.

Why is SCO being allowed to continue to promote down Linux and the GPL ........ without evidence?

With all this in mind, maybe I should read the article...... but even then, should I believe it?

In this article.

One interesting thing not mentioned in the Rueter's report but expounded upon in detail in the pre-decision Cringely article is that winning this lawsuit may allow Eolas to prevent Microsoft fom any infringing behavior through a court injunction -- ie. they can't use the technology covered under the patent upheld by the court at any price if Eolas decides to do that (since by holding the patent they are not required to license the right to use it to anyone). And they may decide to sell to someone other than Microsoft exclusively the rights to develop software including the patented methods.

This is one of the places software patents are really bad (though in Microsoft's case its a bit of being hoist by their own petard), the exclusivity without compulsory licensing allows Eolas (or any other company with a patented process/method/device) to use their patent as a club to force Microsoft (or anyone else) to do whatever Eolas wants if they need/want to license the patented technology.

Eolas is not a patent profolio company by a long shot, they are a pure R&D company.
You can see some of the things thay have patented here.
I seem to recall a article where the founder of Eolas was talking about a patent war against Microsoft, not because they wanted royalties but because they objected to the I.E.ization of the web.
Notice that Eolas is going after Microsoft, not Sun or Mozilla.
Standard practice for patent profolio companies is to prey on the weaker first. Eolas went after the main standard breaker with their lawsuit. I think this should give us some hope about Eolas's intentions.

Do you really think that Bush thiks 10 years in advance when he bleeds the economy dry? Making record deficits in a period of slow economy is either:
- stupid : the coutry will be hung to dry by the banks when the debt covers all the country's worth;
- brilliant: see the Keynesian Economic Theory

IM(not so)HO, Bush does not know about the theory which he seems to be applying to some extent*.

IANAE (I am not an economist) but I play one on Slashdot!

*: Keynes prescribed spending in things such as public works, which creates value for the society, as well as jobs.

I would like some sort of curbs on job exports to these nations . The businesses are just weasling out of paying older workers health care . More here at Cringleys latest column on INDIAN offshoring.

Being able to send an anonymous letter is NOT an essential liberty.

I think Ben would dissagree with you.

"...he responds to inputs by choosing the most appropriate epigram in his database, making him a sort of walking repository of clever one-liners."

So, a fairly accurate historical representation, then.

I'm waiting for the Algonquin Round Table bot, where a selection of literary notables will make caustic, cutting remarks when spoken to.

Artificial lighting can cause disorientation and misorientation of both adults and hatchlings. Turtle hatchlings are attracted to light, ignoring or coming out of the ocean to go towards a light source, increasing their chances of death or injury. In addition, as nesting females avoid areas with intense lighting, highly developed areas may cause problems for turtles trying to nest.

Guess they missed the PBS special.

Heh. Now, where have I heard an idea as dumb as that before?

Oh yeah, here.

Your accounting is off. Let's see, there were what, somewhere near 11 clear handles replying to the original female outing post, plus several ACs. Given a general prevalence of homosekshul-type persons in the broad populace (10% or less), we can conclude that 1 or 2 of you respondants are gay.

Unfortunately, you cannot conclude this. There is no evidence that this is a representative sample of the population. It is likely to be otherwise.

Even assuming the 10% in the general popluation is correct (it's disputed result that came from a Kinsey survey, iirc), you cannot extrapolate it to this population segment.

I would assume that the majority of slashdot consists of white educated males, disproportionate to the general population. What the degree of homosexuality in this population is, I cannot tell.

Possibly higher than the norm, I guess ...

For a story about a famous non-representative sample I suggest you see:

http://www.pbs.org/fmc/segments/progseg7.htm

Last week the news said airlines were looking at the credit agency and medical insurance reports of every passenger. People with low credit scroes were flagged for additional scrutiny. I guess because these are easy databases to access, not because they are informative.

You'd think that a gargantuan behemoth like MS would think "who cares about some snivelling little toy OS like Linux". But you'd be wrong. Remember, a young, nobody upstart (MS and DOS) shoved aside the top dog (DR and CP/M) not by being richer, or smarter, or faster, or better, but by being more alert. Gary Kildall was semi-unavailable and/or not that interested in talking with IBM, and Gates and Allen were very available and interested, and here we all are.

MS sees this whole Bazaar/Cathedral thing and it makes sense -- faster updates, more solid code, thousands of eyes, etc. It's a lot of alertness (and is thus a threat), plus it's got that magic word: FREE. But the whole premise of Bill G's life is that software should not be free -- that was his major contribution to the old Homebrew Computer Club, where everyone freely traded/borrowed (??AAs would say "stole") software. Thus, MS's dilemma: how to beat someone at their own game, when their game is completely contrary to all the rules they live by.

For further (this time, actually good) reading about MS and Linux, see this. For another possible reason MS wants to get inside Linux's head, see this -- a.k.a. "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em".

You'd think that a gargantuan behemoth like MS would think "who cares about some snivelling little toy OS like Linux". But you'd be wrong. Remember, a young, nobody upstart (MS and DOS) shoved aside the top dog (DR and CP/M) not by being richer, or smarter, or faster, or better, but by being more alert. Gary Kildall was semi-unavailable and/or not that interested in talking with IBM, and Gates and Allen were very available and interested, and here we all are.

MS sees this whole Bazaar/Cathedral thing and it makes sense -- faster updates, more solid code, thousands of eyes, etc. It's a lot of alertness (and is thus a threat), plus it's got that magic word: FREE. But the whole premise of Bill G's life is that software should not be free -- that was his major contribution to the old Homebrew Computer Club, where everyone freely traded/borrowed (??AAs would say "stole") software. Thus, MS's dilemma: how to beat someone at their own game, when their game is completely contrary to all the rules they live by.

For further (this time, actually good) reading about MS and Linux, see this. For another possible reason MS wants to get inside Linux's head, see this -- a.k.a. "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em".

Here's something I found at the PBS store

Here's something I found at the PBS store

I suppose you've never heard of the Whiskey Rebellion, the Nat Turner Rebellion, Nat Bacon's Rebellion, Shay's Rebellion, and countless others (including that whole revolution thing in 1776).

We have a proud history of inciting violent revolts on this side of the pond!

Ahhh, the arrogance of the human race... nukes are very big, yes, but only on a human scale. The Earth is very large. Very very large. Let's do the math here:

Earth's Land Surface Area:
45,000,000 sqare miles
Destructive Blast Radius of a 25-Megaton Airburst:
10.7 miles
Number of Nuclear Warheads in Stock at Height of Cold War:
61,000

10.7*10.7*3.1415926 = about 360 square miles
45,000,000/360 = 125,000 warheads

Sorry, even assuming an even spreading, assuming all warheads are 25MT (most are much smaller), and assuming all blasts are airbursts (they wouldn't be), even at the HEIGHT of the cold war there weren't enough nuclear weapons in existence (and only half of those were/are in any condition to be deployed) to blast even half the land area of the earth, much less blast it three times over.

I'm not saying that nuclear weapons are good, or that a nuclear war would be fun. I just can't stand the mindless parroting of hysterical hyperbole as if it were fact. I agree with the sentiment, but I don't agree with the presentation. Much of the Nuclear Disarmament crowd is dismissed as wild-eyed, irrational hippies. Why? Because they act like wild-eyed, irrational hippies. Ignoring the mathematical reality and instead believing a impossibly fantastic doomsday scenario doesn't help.

It is obviously not fair use. Read Cringely.

The other day the U.S. Department of Agriculture cafeteria was shut down

You're point being what, exactly? First, as I pointed out before, the government will screw up from time to time. Just because something isn't perfect, isn't a reason to get rid of it. Are you perfect? No? How about we get rid of you?

Businesses-- must keep employees, shareholders and customers happy, or they go out of business.

You, like many libertarians and conservaties, seem to be under the delusion that there is infinte choice and competition, so "if you don't like it go somewhere else". Except that is frequently not the case. If your employee's can't easily get another job, you are pretty free to screw with them, as Tyler Pipe has done. The only reason businesses try to keep customers happy is to make money, and if they make more money by not doing so, they will. Just look at ATM machines and cell phone plans; by using an ATM you *save* the bank money by not having to pay a human teller, but they charge you for saving them money. And try to find a cell phone plan that doesn't suck ass. Pleasing shareholders however, would fall under the "making money" category.

Did you know there used to be many postal services in the US? The reason the government provides it is not because it was an essential service that was not being addressed-- but because it was a profitable service at that time, and the government wanted the money-- so they made it illegal to compete. Read the "No Treason" series of articles by one of the people who used to run a private postal service.

Bzzzz wrong! You can have a piece of mail delivered to any address in the United States for a single price, even if it means flying a plane out to a remote Alaskan cabin or a park bench in Central Park. That would never happen with a non goverment entity that wasn't required to do so.

Government-- must keep people poor, uneducated and insecure in order to maintain power, thus the poorer a job they do, the more they can claim that its lack of funding and the higher the taxes they can raise without a revolution.

Hey, is it pretty warm up there? Why not try laying off the naivette, the paranoia, and the cheap crack and get out of the house for a change.

All services "provided" by government are low quality, and the are all provided at great expense- - where does the money go?

Oooookay. The interstate highway system is maintained by the gvt and paid for by your tax dollars. Without the goverment building roads, it would fall to companies to build them, and if they did they'd be charging tolls. Ever read up on the railroad barons from 100 years ago? How would you like to have highway barons today? Do you honestly think that it would cost you less money to drive across the country, paying tolls as you go, compared to having the government do it? Even if you've never left your hometown, all the goods and services that depend on transportation are going to cost a lot more because even if you don't pay tolls, they will.

I could go on forever about great federal programs, but I don't want to waste too much of my time on an inbred moron.

"You, sir, are talking out of your ass."

Considering high visibility articles like this and this, it is conceivable that many readers share a similar understanding of how RCU got into Linux.

"The person who developed the RCU code for Dynix is not the same who did the work on Linux."

The comment does not make this claim. It states, accurately or otherwise, that the person who wrote the RCU code for "Sequent's *nix" also wrote IBM's RCU code, and that is the code that is in Linux.

"The RCU implementation you see on Linux was done by 3 engineers, none of them having anything to do with the original Sequent employee."

Why not name names? If there is a general misunderstanding it might help clarify the issue.

"I know, I was at Sequent at that time."

Congratulations.

While these books may seem well researched and informative, it is important to note their main financial contributer while doing their research was the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints(Mormons). In fact, the publishers of these two books was founded in New York, but moved it's headquarters to Salt Lake City, Utah, and is majority owned by the Mormons.

Why does all that matter? Conflict of interest. Remember, the mormons are the ones that claim their founder, Joseph Smith, translated a previously "hidden" "message from God" into english from ... Egyptian heiroglyphics. And while his translation has been completely debunked, millions of Mormons continue to believe. And the Mormon church wants nothing more than to trick more people. So they Have hired Lesley and Roy Adkins to slowly add credibility to their story of "enlightenment from God through their prophet".

This is one of the wealthiest institutions in the world, and they are trying to legitimize their claims. In fact, Mormons have already invaded much of the U.S. political system and once in power, they will censor all other belief systems and, using their overseas propoganda army they will attempt to take over the world.

If you buy into these books, you are buying in to the Mormon conspiracy.

This public service announcement brought to you by ICBLF

Exactly. If you remember the RIAA goonimean lawyer debating Lessig a while ago, he tried to avoid that question with some hand waving, but it basically amounted to this:
Q: When I buy music, am I buying a physical object which stores music, or am I buying a license to enjoy the music on that object?
A: No.
Which is why I try to avoid buying things from the entertainment industry- you don't really get anything (except maybe sued).

Article I, Section 8. The Congress shall have power [...] To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries

From this Sept. 2002 PBS article on BayTSP

One thing BayTSP's spider programs don't do is sit at the Internet peering points sniffing all packets as they go by. "That would be wiretapping, which is illegal," he says. "All we do is go to the same places any user could go, look at the same files anyone else could look at, and we only probe the ports on your computer that you have made public."

The BBC article acts like this is some new big deal, but it's exactly the same thing they've been doing since at least September last year. I think they've spun the article to make it seem a lot worse than it is. Perhaps the only difference is that they have more clients demanding the info now, or that they've decided to prosecute people at a lower level of infringement?

Cringley did a profile of Ishikawa last year.

I've got to back up your praise of Frontline. It's excellent. At times it seems so incisive that I don't understand why other news agencies haven't picked up one of their stories and spun it to a wider audience. Check out "The Man Who Knew"

Ah, statistics.

1) Your calculations are off. 20 years * 365 d/y * 12 hours/day * 60 min/hr /2 million stones = 2.6 blocks/minutes. That's significantly longer than 20-30 seconds.

2) If you use slightly different numbers: 2.3 million blocks, and assume they worked for 40 years at 12 hours per day (or 20 years at 24 hrs/day), then you get that they put up a block every 4.6 minutes. Pretty close to what you think that we could do.

Ah, statistics.

1) Your calculations are off. 20 years * 365 d/y * 12 hours/day * 60 min/hr /2 million stones = 2.6 blocks/minutes. That's significantly longer than 20-30 seconds.

2) If you use slightly different numbers: 2.3 million blocks, and assume they worked for 40 years at 12 hours per day (or 20 years at 24 hrs/day), then you get that they put up a block every 4.6 minutes. Pretty close to what you think that we could do.

Sorry for the caps, need this to get more attention than the parent post. This was not done in Hanford, but rather at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina (dunno how I confused'em).

PBS did a special on this in their "Intimate Strangers" series on microbes - so titled because they're everywhere and represent a major interdependency but largely unacknowledged.

A summary of that particular episode is at: http://www.pbs.org/opb/intimatestrangers/newage/bi oremediation.html

1. Afghanistan, 1998, 2001, 2002, 2003
2. Bosnia, 1994, 1995
3. Cambodia, 1969-70
4. China, 1945-46
5. Congo (now Zaire), 1964
6. Cuba, 1959-1961 ("Bay of Pigs" invasion)
7. El Salvador, 1980s
8. Grenada, 1983
9. Guatemala, 1954, 1960, 1967-69
10. Indonesia, 1958
11. Iran, 1987
12. Iraq, 1991-2000, 2003 (The U.S. government used radioactive bombs in the first war against Iraq. See United States War Crimes Against Iraq for what appears to be an accurate history.)
13. Korea and China, 1950-53 (Korean War)
14. Kuwait, 1991
15. Laos, 1964-73
16. Lebanon, 1983, 1984 (both Lebanese and Syrian targets)
17. Libya, 1986
18. Nicaragua, 1980s
19. Panama, 1989. The U.S. government called it "Operation Just Cause". The link is to a U.S. military web site.
20. Peru, 1965
21. Somalia, 1993
22. Sudan 1998. There are doubts that the pharmaceutical plant that was bombed was making weapons.
23. Vietnam, 1961-73 (An estimated 2,000,000 Vietnamese were killed.)
24. Yugoslavia, 1999

There are many sources for this information. For example, see this PBS web page: PBS: A Chronology of U.S. Military Interventions (PBS is the Public Broadcasting System in the U.S.) Also see From Wounded Knee to Afghanistan: A Century of U.S. Military Interventions [zmag.org] and The government of the United States is a consistent opponent of international law. [prairie-fire.org]

I put some links and explanation together about wh

But the RIAA says he doesn't "own" the music--only that he has a license.

An RIAA rep says he owns the record. This implies a license to perform it privately for the physical lifetime of the record. It's similar in effect to the typical software EULA condition that the license terminates when all copies in the licensee's possession are destroyed.

Nova recently had a great episode about IVF and other techniques. Some of it was actually kind of scary, like the tech in a fertility clinic who explained why multiple births are so common. His take was that it's all market pressure. If women look at the statistics for a fertility clinic, they will see that some percentage of all IVFs resulted in birth. Well, if you cram 5 viable eggs back in, instead of 2, you *are* more likely to get multiples, but you're also less likely to damage your success record in terms of viable implantations....

Nova recently had a great episode about IVF and other techniques. Some of it was actually kind of scary, like the tech in a fertility clinic who explained why multiple births are so common. His take was that it's all market pressure. If women look at the statistics for a fertility clinic, they will see that some percentage of all IVFs resulted in birth. Well, if you cram 5 viable eggs back in, instead of 2, you *are* more likely to get multiples, but you're also less likely to damage your success record in terms of viable implantations....

Well it seems the Robert Cringely has the answer in this weeks Pulpit.