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The OpenBTS guys also had the amazing luck (at least when they started) that the area of the Burning Man festival (Blackrock City) didn't have any commercial cell phone providers in the area, so the FCC was a whole lot more forgiving. The technical details include the actual FCC license for the event. Yes, they were and are licensed to perform this activity. These guys are real pros at doing this kind of thing, especially since they've been doing it for several years now.

The OpenBTS guys also had the amazing luck (at least when they started) that the area of the Burning Man festival (Blackrock City) didn't have any commercial cell phone providers in the area, so the FCC was a whole lot more forgiving. The technical details include the actual FCC license for the event. Yes, they were and are licensed to perform this activity. These guys are real pros at doing this kind of thing, especially since they've been doing it for several years now.

The software they use for pulsar timing is open-source, too: http://sourceforge.net/projects/tempo2/

No, it was also a desktop when docked. Tell me again which other phone does that?

Motorola has quite a few phones that do. It's based on Ubuntu.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/motorola-webtop.motorola/

...at least, algorithmic composition: SuperCollider

Foobar2000 alternative for Linux would be deadbeef.

http://deadbeef.sourceforge.net/

For me, the best improvement is that joysticks are hot pluggable now. So now all of the obnoxiousness with deprecating use of the linux joystick protocol in favor of evdev and losing calibration and button remapping is finally worth it. Combined with the sixaxis daemon, emulators and native games are downright pleasant to use nowadays (yeah yeah, you have to give evil Sony tons of money, but I like to delude myself into thinking the input device people aren't as evil as the rest of the company). If only most programs didn't get confused by the accelerometers making configuration a pain (dear fellow hackers: please require an axis to change by some threshold and not just have a non-zero value in auto-configuration. I'm looking at you armagetronad).

There's an APNG mod for VirtualDub. And guess what? It's free and open source. Frame stitching folks! Once you figure out how it works, it's really not that hard!

Problem solved (at least on Windows at the moment, I'm sure other video encoders could handle it too)... Next!

*And no, you don't need to make yet another special program to do all the animation stuff. The majority of animation, 3D rendering, and video editing software that are worth using can output to sequenced frames.

A quick search turned up this tool for converting animated GIFs to APNG:

http://gif2apng.sourceforge.net/

Sure it could probably be built on and improved, but the real issue are the browsers. I just checked on MacOS X with Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera and Safari. Of those browsers only Firefox and Opera supported APNG.

The kickstarter should, IMHO 'focus' on:
    - APNG awareness (available converters, creation tools, viewers, etc)
    - Getting key websites to support it. I am thinking of sites such as Tumblr.
    - Pushing for support in other main-stream browsers (IE, Safari, Google Chrome)
 

Might this be what you're looking for?

They have precisely zero security value. Please see, for a brief introduction:

http://phys.org/news/2011-11-stanford-outsmart-captcha-codes.html
http://cintruder.sourceforge.net/
http://arstechnica.com/security/2012/05/google-recaptcha-brought-to-its-knees/
http://arstechnica.com/security/2008/04/gone-in-60-seconds-spambot-cracks-livehotmail-captcha/
http://www.troyhunt.com/2012/01/breaking-captcha-with-automated-humans.html

among others.

Nobody who actually understands the nature of the threat would even CONSIDER using captchas at this point.

Now...every now and then some poor naive fool stands up and says "But but but...they're working for us." No. They are not. You are simply not worthy of attack...yet. If you ever become a target, because someone has a grudge against you, or because you have an important resource, or merely because someone is bored, then if they are are at least minimally competent attackers, they will go right through your alleged "captcha" defenses without the slightest problem.

There are lots of alternatives that can play back YouTube videos without using Google's JavaScript or Adobe Flash (e.g. ViewTube, youtube-dl, UnPlug, quvi and youtube-viewer (which also supports viewing comments).

In languages like Fortran, C, C++ and Sappeur, I can allocate 1 million objects in one consecutive array of octets. Then I can loop over these objects as fast as the CPU cache can be filled. There won't be a single octet of cache wasted or loaded in vain.

With Java, I need to allocate an array holding 1 million 8-byte references and then I need to call the new operator 1 million times. That means I will waste something like 1 million * 16 bytes and the reference array. To top up the waste, I need to waste cache space for the references and then load some randomly allocated, wasteful objects into my little cache. More or less the definition of Regression In Computer Science.

Mr Kuck and Mr Cray were way ahead of Mr Gosling when they worked on the CDC 6600 and the Cray 1 machines. And the magnificient Fortran compilers doing marvellous optimizations that are in many ways unamatched today.

Dipl.-Ing.(BA) Frank Gerlach
Gäufelden
Germany

From my own little benchmarking with Sappeur and Java, I can testify that the naive use of the new operator is much more wasteful in C and C++ style languages than in Java.

Good C++ programmers know about that and ensure new and delete are called judiciously and will amortize over massive loops. For example, declare a string buffer outside a loop and reuse it n (e.g. 100000) times, or Java will blow C++ out of the water, performance-wise. With RAII, this is not really an issue, as long as you know what new and delete (or malloc/free) actually do INSIDE the C and C++ standard libraries.

All that is only true if the Java program is allowed to consume about 200% more memory than the C, C++ or Sappeur equivalent. If you limit the Java RAM to roughly the same as the C++ equivalent, the GC will run all the time and destroy Java performance.

Dipl.-Ing.(BA) Frank Gerlach
Gäufelden
Germany

Have a look at Sappeur. It aims to marry the advantages of Java with those of C++.

In a proper language like C, C++ or Sappeur, you can have value arrays and you can access your cache in the most efficient manner one can think of.

Java is still a clunker when it comes to efficient memory allocation and layout.

I am using this opportunity to promote a langauge of mine called Sappeur.

This language aims to combine the strengths of Java (memory/type safety) with all the useful C++ mechanisms such as

+ Synchronous Destructors
+ Deterministic Memory Management
+ Value Arrays
+ Almost All Objects can be allocated on the stack or the heap
+ Special type support for thread-shared data types

Here is a presentation and the manual.

Regarding the claims "Java is already good enough", this might be true for some special cases, where memory consumption (typically at least 3 times as much as the equivalent C++ program) does not matter and the problem itself is rather primitive. My own informal benchmarking with a CSV-parser/hashtable type of program suggests that.

But as soon as you manipulate lots of highly complex data sets, the strengths of C++ will make themselves be visible in performance, too.

It is not a coincidence Steve Jobs (peace be upon this great perfectionist asshole) insisted on the use of a C-style language (Objective C) for Apple products. Perfection requires soft-realtime capability which you cannot get from a GC language. And probably never will, as memory management must be tailored to the problem instead of using a "one size fits all" approach (automatic Garbage Collection).

Dipl.-Ing. Informationstechnik (BA) Frank Gerlach
Gäufelden
Germany

PS: Yeah, now that I grew a little older I do think a proper CS degree matters in the I.T. world. That's why I am listing mine here.

I am using this opportunity to promote a langauge of mine called Sappeur.

This language aims to combine the strengths of Java (memory/type safety) with all the useful C++ mechanisms such as

+ Synchronous Destructors
+ Deterministic Memory Management
+ Value Arrays
+ Almost All Objects can be allocated on the stack or the heap
+ Special type support for thread-shared data types

Here is a presentation and the manual.

Regarding the claims "Java is already good enough", this might be true for some special cases, where memory consumption (typically at least 3 times as much as the equivalent C++ program) does not matter and the problem itself is rather primitive. My own informal benchmarking with a CSV-parser/hashtable type of program suggests that.

But as soon as you manipulate lots of highly complex data sets, the strengths of C++ will make themselves be visible in performance, too.

It is not a coincidence Steve Jobs (peace be upon this great perfectionist asshole) insisted on the use of a C-style language (Objective C) for Apple products. Perfection requires soft-realtime capability which you cannot get from a GC language. And probably never will, as memory management must be tailored to the problem instead of using a "one size fits all" approach (automatic Garbage Collection).

Dipl.-Ing. Informationstechnik (BA) Frank Gerlach
Gäufelden
Germany

PS: Yeah, now that I grew a little older I do think a proper CS degree matters in the I.T. world. That's why I am listing mine here.

I am using this opportunity to promote a langauge of mine called Sappeur.

This language aims to combine the strengths of Java (memory/type safety) with all the useful C++ mechanisms such as

+ Synchronous Destructors
+ Deterministic Memory Management
+ Value Arrays
+ Almost All Objects can be allocated on the stack or the heap
+ Special type support for thread-shared data types

Here is a presentation and the manual.

Regarding the claims "Java is already good enough", this might be true for some special cases, where memory consumption (typically at least 3 times as much as the equivalent C++ program) does not matter and the problem itself is rather primitive. My own informal benchmarking with a CSV-parser/hashtable type of program suggests that.

But as soon as you manipulate lots of highly complex data sets, the strengths of C++ will make themselves be visible in performance, too.

It is not a coincidence Steve Jobs (peace be upon this great perfectionist asshole) insisted on the use of a C-style language (Objective C) for Apple products. Perfection requires soft-realtime capability which you cannot get from a GC language. And probably never will, as memory management must be tailored to the problem instead of using a "one size fits all" approach (automatic Garbage Collection).

Dipl.-Ing. Informationstechnik (BA) Frank Gerlach
Gäufelden
Germany

PS: Yeah, now that I grew a little older I do think a proper CS degree matters in the I.T. world. That's why I am listing mine here.

There's also an open-source project also aiming at something like PhotoSynth, Insight3d. I haven't tried it myself, though.

The same persons that shows talent are the same persons able to consider a multi-dimensional problem and provide a new perspective on it.

When it comes to coding it's all about breaking down a "problem" into parts, run it through a good compiler and get rid of all warnings, use some additional quality enhancing tools like FindBugs and take care of the next step. Then perform test runs using Purify Plus.

The ability to refactor code in modern IDEs is also helping a lot.

They are a way to write code that you naively think is fast. If you want your data structure (or whatever) to be fast, then you'll do a lot better writing your own that fits the particular scenario you are working on.

There's a nice example here. I have not idea how people succeed in making the templated data structures use physical memory in a reasonably good way, but apparently, it's not that simple, if these numbers are any indication.

Also, it entertains me that I get modded up all the time for saying that LISP is a better language. It's highly unlikely that the people modding me up even use LISP.

Well, what do you know, perhaps some of them use Maxima. Or Emacs, for that matter. :-)

So does Java support unsigned integers (words) yet ?

Quite how anything can profess to be a "programming language" without the concept of an unsigned integer is simply beyond me.

There, there. I put a link for you: Shakespeare Programming Language.
You are welcome.

I know and understand enough not to have baseless fears.

You do? http://blog.aw-snap.info/p/examples-of-malicious-javascript.html

That is the first result on Google, out of 1,229,682 in total. JS is a complete programming language; and while it runs mostly sandboxed, its effects are not sandboxed. For example, JS can do portscans of government computers on behalf of a third party. Do you want to probe Pentagon's servers while you read news on a blog? The FBI will come knocking down YOUR door, not the door of the hacker who inserted the code into someone else's server. JS code can upload illegal materials onto servers; that includes materials that you can go to prison for. JS makes your computer into a flexible proxy for a purpose that you do not know. It will cease to run after you leave the page; but with enough hits, the author does not care - every visitor will do his small bit of work. For all that work it will use your IP address. Good luck proving to a judge that it wasn't you who registered for an account and posted a CP photo. All the IP records will point at your PC.

The executive summary here is simple: today you should be fully aware of what your computer is doing. Running obfuscated, untraceable JS on random Web pages is the least wise idea here - especially when you don't need that JS. That's why NoScript defaults to deny. There are few pages that use JS for a reason; if you trust them, enable JS for them. Browsing random sites with JS on is not the best course of action.

Check out Retroshare. It does exactly this. http://retroshare.sourceforge.net/

A quick article about it. http://www.linuxadvocates.com/2013/06/retroshare-for-paranoid-in-you.html

Why would you have to remember them? Just use something like Password Safe or KeePass to remember your passwords for you. Not only do you not have to remember your passwords, but because you don't have to remember them, you can have much longer and more complex passwords.

Download, [compile], play, and tell us. http://sc2.sourceforge.net/

I don't have much to add other than I'm hugely excited for both Star Control and Battlezone. SC1 and SC2 were bedrock mainstays of my college days, and the hover-tank Battlezone released in 1998 was phenomenal.

I've since moved on to play and enjoy The Ur-Quan Masters, but even shortly after SC2's heyday and before UQM was available, I remember paying for a legit download of the PC version of the game (late '98, early '99?). If we could get network mode Melee, I'd be tickled pink. If there were a persistent universe game (ala EVE) formed out of the Star Control franchise I'd lock myself away in a room and never see the light of day again.

However I've never found a comparable game to the '98 Battlezone. The gameplay was terrifically fun, fairly easy to get started, the copy protection was a reasonable compromise (need one disc present among all the computers playing on the LAN), and I cannot remember a single stability, usability, or gameplay bug. I could very much see wasting away many hours if that were updated and brought to market again.

Donald Knuth once mentioned that there are maybe 500 really fundamental algorithms out there (and he mentioned the Bresenham algorithm as one example of a non-trivial one), and everything else is just derivative and nothing new.

Ummm... u sure?

Print to PDF using the open source PDFCreator, which would create another PDF file?

I am a C++ developer for more than 16 years now and I did some Java and C# development in the past. Based on that experience, I can fully attest the correctness of the reasoning presented in the article. In addition, I am aware of the fact that practical (as opposed to theoretical) C and C++ programs are chock-full of security issues, most of which can be attributed to the lack of type safety in C and C++.

Being an engineer, I started to develop a "fix" for the deficiencies of C and C++, but at the same time tried to retain all the good aspects such as stack allocation, value arrays and so on. The language is called Sappeur (from Sapeurs-Pompiers, french for Firebrigade-Member (which I once was)) and technically is a compiler that translates into Posix-compliant (pthreads) C++ code. That means it should compile into binaries on all major platforms from phones to mainframes.

Here it is:

Disclaimer: Yes, the current compiler version definitely is not polished, it probably is in some ways a quick hack, but if you work around the quirks, I am quite positive it can provide real value relative to Java (more efficient, better resposniveness, smaller memory footprint) and relative to C or C++ (more secure).

Especially when you read things like this

Then why does rkhunter exist?

A rootkit is not the same as a virus, so that doesn't prove anything.

I'm not saying GNU/Linux doesn't have any viruses, but you need to find a better argument.

Any AV is a waste of money and of CPU cycles, there are no viruses on GNU/Linux.

Then why does rkhunter exist?

Open Motif was opensourced quite a while ago, you find it as libmotif4 and mwm in most distros. CDE was opensourced last year - the sourceforge page is http://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/

Despite the fact HP could not avoid the "Ping Of Death",

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ping_of_death

I can hear all the C and C++ developers tell me, my cat and the entire world that "good programmers can write secure C and C++ code". It appears all the operating system developers at HP, SUN, IBM and the like were simply shitty programmers. That's one explanation.

The other explanation is that C and C++ are horribly dangerous programming languages and should not be used, AS PEOPLE WILL OTHERWISE STOP USING COMPUTERS. That will affect all of us as in "NO MORE JOBS FOR DEVELOPERS AND OTHER IT FIDDLERS OF INSECURE CRAP ".

Here is my little attempt to improve Software Security:

http://sourceforge.net/p/sappeurcompiler/code-0/2/tree/trunk/

And if you still think C and C++ are a great idea, read this:

http://www.infoworld.com/d/security/in-his-own-words-confessions-of-cyber-warrior-222266

Since I'm a computer expert, I've decided to soup-up your post with bleeding-edge, World Wide Web 1.0 "Hyper-Link" technology. Now all you have to do is point your cursor (computer mouse*) at a "URL" and click the button (on the computer mouse) and Netscape Navigator will automatically go to the new web "page." Amazing!

* If you have a newer computer mouse, it might have more than one button... Check your owner's manual for which button to press.

Not really.

I think you're jumping on the Node.js bandwagon without understanding why.

Node.js is a good asynchronous server, like Tornado (written in Python). However, it sounds like you are writing a backend for a RESTful (mobile) web application. Web is rarely asynchronous and has no special benefits from using an asynchronous server. You will not be more scalable just because you choose Node.js as your platform.

However, if you're excited about JavaScript on the server -- wonderful, because you get to use the same language throughout your project -- then consider the following products that are based on the JVM:

Prudence (cool because it has a framework for MongoDB, which is also JavaScript-based, and also because it uses Restlet, a truly awesome JVM library)

Helma (very mature and proved its worth)

JSSP

Myna

Phobos

http://sourceforge.net/projects/luarm/ and for more info have a look at my PhD thesis:
http://folk.uio.no/georgios/MagklarasPhDThesisv3.pdf
Just to get a few ideas. The paper that describes LUARM can be found here:
http://folk.uio.no/georgios/papers/LUARM-WDFIAfinal.pdf
Some of the things in LUARM have been modified since the paper was written but the idea is the same.
GM

Use LUARM as one of the counter measures: http://sourceforge.net/projects/luarm/

>> Has anyone open sourced a SOFTWARE reader yet?

Yep :)
sudo apt-get install zbar-tools.
And, use zbarimg.

mint@mint ~/Desktop $ zbarimg code.jpg
QR-Code:http://m.http://gizmodo.com/5969312/how-qr-codes-work-and-why-they-suck-so-hard
scanned 1 barcode symbols from 1 images in 0.07 seconds

From http://gizmodo.com/5969312/how-qr-codes-work-and-why-they-suck-so-hard. The url glitch is probably courtesy of the gizmodo reporter ; )

Now that you gave me a name, just found that it reads normal barcodes and a Win32 release and other notes for later:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/zbar/
http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/zbar/index.php?title=HOWTO:_Compile_with_MinGW_in_Windows

Thanks!

>> Has anyone open sourced a SOFTWARE reader yet?

Yep :)
sudo apt-get install zbar-tools.
And, use zbarimg.

mint@mint ~/Desktop $ zbarimg code.jpg
QR-Code:http://m.http://gizmodo.com/5969312/how-qr-codes-work-and-why-they-suck-so-hard
scanned 1 barcode symbols from 1 images in 0.07 seconds

From http://gizmodo.com/5969312/how-qr-codes-work-and-why-they-suck-so-hard. The url glitch is probably courtesy of the gizmodo reporter ; )

Now that you gave me a name, just found that it reads normal barcodes and a Win32 release and other notes for later:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/zbar/
http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/zbar/index.php?title=HOWTO:_Compile_with_MinGW_in_Windows

Thanks!

I did a little bit of wire-wrapping myself to build an I/O system for Commodore equipment, but not much, and wire wrapping was going out of style even then. Good points about knowledge of physics etc. as a layer below. I do not know off-hand how to make a transistor chemically in practical terms, for example.

As for difficulty of lifework, it's a "standing on the shoulders of giants thing". One success (like with Doug) can enable the next, like the systems Doug Engelbart and Alan Kay and others pioneered in turn support my own ambitions. Compared to about thirty years ago when I started this quixotic scheme, self-replicating space habitats almost seem like an easy reach at this point (even if still decade or two away from a seed launch). Still a lot of work, but I can see how it could possibly happen by a global networked effort, as described here:
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/oscomak/SSI_Fernhout2001_web.html
"We believe that thousands of individuals (such as the people at this conference) are ready and willing to make compromises in their own lives to nurture the space settlement dream at the grassroots level - but in a more direct way than has been attempted thus far. In particular, individuals could collaborate on the iterative development of detailed space habitat designs and simulations using nothing more than the computers they already have at home for playing games. While excellent progress has been made on the general engineering design of space habitats (in terms of basic physics and proof-of-concept projects), many of the details remain to be worked out. There have been individual attempts in some of these areas (e.g., the SSI Matrix effort), but a persistent collaborative community has not yet coalesced around constructing a comprehensive and non-proprietary library of such details."

More floundering efforts towards that:
http://www.openvirgle.net/

A better success by others?
http://tmp2.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
http://openluna.org/
http://mars-sim.sourceforge.net/

Starting around age 63, my advisor at Princeton, George A. Miller, started plugging away at the (effectively) open source WordNet project and accomplished a lot in 20 years. WordNet underlies much of Google's success. My indirect hand in that:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/openvirgle/PdK35mSNoSU/3zLpZuljHiMJ

But likewise, I can credit his patient systematic work and decision to open source his effort as setting a good example for me.

And, at some point a system can begin to reflect on itself. I agree how little we know individually about how to make stuff in a complex technological environment (compared to day, a family farm, with self-replicating seeds). Thus my suggestion of something like "OSCOMAK" using computer networks to systematize such knowledge on how to make stuff.
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/oscomak/
"The OSCOMAK project will foster a community in which many interested individuals will contribute to the creation of a distributed global repository of manufacturing knowledge about past, present and future processes, materials, and products. ... The Oscomak project is an attempt to create a core of communities more in control of their technological destiny and its social implications. No single design for a community or technology will please everyone, or even many people. Nor would a single design be likely to survive. So this project endeavors to gather information and to develop tools and processes that all fit together conceptually like Tinkertoys or Legos. The result will be a library of possibilities that individuals in a community can use to achieve any

I don't think that page you linked to is updated. Motif was recently open sourced under LGPL.

http://motif.ics.com/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/motif/
http://sourceforge.net/p/motif/code/ci/master/tree/COPYING

They even open sourced CDE under the same license not long before that.

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/08/06/1335258/cde-open-sourced

I don't think that page you linked to is updated. Motif was recently open sourced under LGPL.

http://motif.ics.com/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/motif/
http://sourceforge.net/p/motif/code/ci/master/tree/COPYING

They even open sourced CDE under the same license not long before that.

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/08/06/1335258/cde-open-sourced

I'd like to see all Linux projects standardize on Qt as a their Gui toolkit. I understand why everyone has their own but the war is won and Qt won it.

War..Won!? All I see is healthy competition, and personally I run a whole host of Applications that I don't care what toolkit they are in. Having a look around there are some absolutely stellar QT applications http://calibre-ebook.com/, k3b http://www.k3b.org/ (although not in development for a while), MP3 Diags http://mp3diags.sourceforge.net/ and of course Clementine http://www.clementine-player.org/about. There are a few programs that can run either that I use Transmission http://www.transmissionbt.com/ and Avidemux http://fixounet.free.fr/avidemux/ . But the Bottom line is GTK+ seems as popular as ever, and still more popular than Qt.

What is most bizarre is this about this is LXDE is looking great, a Desktop we don't hear about often enough, and is looking like a desktop I would use...half this discussion is about lets be honest a license subtlety I don't care about.

Lisps, like Scheme and Harlan, can be made readable.

Look at the Readable Lisp S-expressions Project, which extends traditional Lisp notation and adds capabilities such as infix and traditional f(x) style formatting. We provide open source software (MIT license) implementations, including one that can be used as a preprocessor. So, you can have your Harlan and stuff like infix too.

Without these syntax improvements you're right. Very few developers will be happy writing complicated math expressions without infix. And a lot of code that uses GPUs will have significant math expressions.

It has been possible for some time via necessitas. Now they only added it to the official package. Most Qt apps are written on desktop using QtWidgets. When you are developing for mobile devices, you should use QtQuick. QtWidgets aren't designed for mobile devices.

Two and a half years ago, when eircom agreed to implement this 3 strikes rule, Big Media offered eircom a sweetener, which was a free music streaming site for their customers. This was just announced to be closing, so much for the 'carrot' part.

The 3-strikes 'stick' part of their approach is effective, people that have gotten a warning letter have changed their behaviour.... to the point of using less detectable technology such as VPNs or f2f Retroshare

Ireland has a vibrant community of artists and musicians, many of whom are crowdfunding their first releases giving them a direct connection to their fans. People here show a willingness to pay for legal content, itunes (easy to use) and netflix (good value) have both had a big impact here, and globally of course.

These court battles are becoming less and less relevant. We know now that sharing communities and technology will always outpace the enforcers, and also that people will pay for content when it's judged to be affordable and easy to use. Big Media will simply have to learn that lesson and evolve. Those that won't will fade.

Or you can have a BIOS that addresses the decades of accumulated legacy bodging that is the PC, without UEFI.
Just put a BIOS that removes all the old cruft of the old BIOS, adds some new features, but is totally minimalistic.

Because in 10 or 20 years UEFI will be like the old BIOS. It will do totally old stuff that nobody wants, and it will not allow new stuff, because of the same reasons of the that the old BIOS have.

The only remedy is to have a totally minimalistic BIOS that puts control as fast as possible to the System kernel.
We had "Secure Boot" stuff for Linux for a long time before Secure Boot.
See:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Tboot
http://sourceforge.net/projects/tboot/

As this sort of thing is my day job, I find this sort of thing really cool, and I'd be happy to help if I can. I'd recommend looking into snpEff, it's pretty straightforward to use, and is available on SourceForge. (Feel free to track me down and message me, I think we overlapped at Cal.)