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It's as if a well fed westerner telling a poor hungry 3rd world citizen to stay away from the truffles because they will give him a bad case of indigestion. Hypocritical at best...

hypocrisy: The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness.

So, are you saying that I don't believe that Monster.com is a scumbag organization? That I have some sekrit plan to keep the joyous motherlode of high-quality opportunities at Monster.com all for my eviil self?

Perhaps you might consider that I am an employer, and that therefore my views on where I will and won't look for candidates might be of some use to job seekers.

So for those who might actually care, when I am recruiting I post & read in these kinds of forums:

• local Linux user group mailing lists (we are a Linux vendor)
• local system administration mailing lists (I have high respect for admins as potential developers)
• Craig's List
• Security Jobs
• "networking", i.e. friends of friends

Caveat: we have no open positions at this time. We filled several positions last month.

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

It's as if a well fed westerner telling a poor hungry 3rd world citizen to stay away from the truffles because they will give him a bad case of indigestion. Hypocritical at best...

hypocrisy: The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness.

So, are you saying that I don't believe that Monster.com is a scumbag organization? That I have some sekrit plan to keep the joyous motherlode of high-quality opportunities at Monster.com all for my eviil self?

Perhaps you might consider that I am an employer, and that therefore my views on where I will and won't look for candidates might be of some use to job seekers.

So for those who might actually care, when I am recruiting I post & read in these kinds of forums:

• local Linux user group mailing lists (we are a Linux vendor)
• local system administration mailing lists (I have high respect for admins as potential developers)
• Craig's List
• Security Jobs
• "networking", i.e. friends of friends

Caveat: we have no open positions at this time. We filled several positions last month.

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

Two months ago, I posted some job ads (open position) to various forums, noting clearly that I did not want to work with recruiters or third parties. Then I started getting candidate applications responding to a post on flipdog.com (a Monster subsidiary). But I could not access this ad describing my own position unless I paid flipdog.com for the privilege.

Advice to job seekers: never, ever, ever deal with Monster.com or their subsidiaries. I have monster.com and flipdog.com in my spam filters.

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

Two months ago, I posted some job ads (open position) to various forums, noting clearly that I did not want to work with recruiters or third parties. Then I started getting candidate applications responding to a post on flipdog.com (a Monster subsidiary). But I could not access this ad describing my own position unless I paid flipdog.com for the privilege.

Advice to job seekers: never, ever, ever deal with Monster.com or their subsidiaries. I have monster.com and flipdog.com in my spam filters.

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

I can't believe I haven't heard about this yet! I live in Tacoma, and admittedly I've never managed to make it to the LUG meeting here. You'd hope that some local papers, etc, would have meantioned this, but we are in the Microsoft Municipality here, so what can you expect.

I was looking at the list of speakers, and damn, it's impressive.

• Brian Hatch - author of Hacking Linux Exposed, Building Linux VPNs, and the Linux Security newsletter, talking about Linux Security

• Brian "Krow" Aker, slash guru and author of "Running weblogs with Slash" from O'Reilly and one of the Slashdot team, talking about how to optimize MySQL for high traffic websites.

• Dr Crispin Cowan of WireX, creator of things like StackGuard, FormatGuard, and Immunix

• Dr Tim Maher, a white camel award recipient and the guy who runs the Seattle perl user group, talking about shell and perl that should be seen by everyone, based on his upcoming book

This promises to be a really cool - I look forward to going up there this weekend!

I have been using this Mozdev spell checker for about a week, and I love it.

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

I have been using this Mozdev spell checker for about a week, and I love it.

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

Keen: there was an original film that "12 Monkeys" was based on called "La Jetee". Anyone seen it? I'm not generally a fan of French film, but there have been a few brilliant exceptions (Nikita, Diva, City of Lost Children, Delicatessin). Hmmm ... perhaps I am a fan of French film after all :-)

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

Keen: there was an original film that "12 Monkeys" was based on called "La Jetee". Anyone seen it? I'm not generally a fan of French film, but there have been a few brilliant exceptions (Nikita, Diva, City of Lost Children, Delicatessin). Hmmm ... perhaps I am a fan of French film after all :-)

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

Some other spectacularly profitable low-budget movies:

• The Blair Witch Project: made $140M on a budget of $35K
• My Big Fat Greek Wedding: made $240M in the US alone on a budget of $5M

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

Some other spectacularly profitable low-budget movies:

• The Blair Witch Project: made $140M on a budget of $35K
• My Big Fat Greek Wedding: made $240M in the US alone on a budget of $5M

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

Yeah, I love 12 Monkeys too, but it was not under-appreciated. It was widely critically acclaimed, and made $159M world-wide on a budget of $29M. In contrast, Hudson Hawk grossed $17M on a budget of $68M.

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

Yeah, I love 12 Monkeys too, but it was not under-appreciated. It was widely critically acclaimed, and made $159M world-wide on a budget of $29M. In contrast, Hudson Hawk grossed $17M on a budget of $68M.

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

I second that. "Hudson Hawk" was a brilliant farce, and the audience treated it like it was just a really stupid action movie.

Similar, but less pronounced effect for "The Fifth Element". Also for "Sunset". Hmmm ... maybe it's just people don't get Bruce Willis :-)

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

I second that. "Hudson Hawk" was a brilliant farce, and the audience treated it like it was just a really stupid action movie.

Similar, but less pronounced effect for "The Fifth Element". Also for "Sunset". Hmmm ... maybe it's just people don't get Bruce Willis :-)

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

You are forgetting the never-ending stream of annoying, worthless, tax-payer funded, left-wing drivel.

Ah, yes, what I refer to as "the truth." That's my favorite part of NPR. Quite the refreshing change from all that right-wing propaganda about how we have to destroy "Saaddam Huusayn" before he destroys us.

NPR is the only thing worth listening to on radio. If I can't get NPR, I switch to "off." I sure as hell am not going to pay XM $10/month for muzak.

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

You are forgetting the never-ending stream of annoying, worthless, tax-payer funded, left-wing drivel.

Ah, yes, what I refer to as "the truth." That's my favorite part of NPR. Quite the refreshing change from all that right-wing propaganda about how we have to destroy "Saaddam Huusayn" before he destroys us.

NPR is the only thing worth listening to on radio. If I can't get NPR, I switch to "off." I sure as hell am not going to pay XM $10/month for muzak.

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

I have AT&T cellular, and my SMS is unreliable. Messages can take 12 hours to arrive, and they can fail to arrive all together.

AT&T got me started on SMS with a "free for now ..." package, then switched to one where incoming is free, and outgoing costs 10 cents each. So I adapted and basically never send a text message from my phone. However, it is handy that you can e-mail messages to an AT&T cell phone at 5055551234@mobile.att.net (i.e. insert appropriate phone number) for no cost. So I regularly e-mail my wife's cell phone from my desktop.

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

I have AT&T cellular, and my SMS is unreliable. Messages can take 12 hours to arrive, and they can fail to arrive all together.

AT&T got me started on SMS with a "free for now ..." package, then switched to one where incoming is free, and outgoing costs 10 cents each. So I adapted and basically never send a text message from my phone. However, it is handy that you can e-mail messages to an AT&T cell phone at 5055551234@mobile.att.net (i.e. insert appropriate phone number) for no cost. So I regularly e-mail my wife's cell phone from my desktop.

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

Isn't this kind of ideology exactly what let to the 'dot-com crash'. People invested lots of capital in companies that people enjoyed but weren't necessarily very profitable. I think google is the latest subject to this phenomenon. Although I could be,and hope that I am, wrong.

IIRC, in his keynote address to USENIX LISA 2002, Jim Reese, Google's Chief Operations Engineer, claimed that Google is profitable.

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

Isn't this kind of ideology exactly what let to the 'dot-com crash'. People invested lots of capital in companies that people enjoyed but weren't necessarily very profitable. I think google is the latest subject to this phenomenon. Although I could be,and hope that I am, wrong.

IIRC, in his keynote address to USENIX LISA 2002, Jim Reese, Google's Chief Operations Engineer, claimed that Google is profitable.

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

When a professor is first accepted to the faculty of a university, he/she must "publish or perish" for the first 5(+[?]) years. If you do not publish often enough in those first years, you are not retained.

That is done so that only productive researchers are retained. And it is not strictly volume: both the number and the quality of publications are measured. Some schools actually use citation counts: how often are your papers cited?

I personally think the requirements of universities should change so that we are not searching through a glut of papers,

It is not the university standards that are the problem, it is the standards of reviewers at journals and conferences that lead to the glut of papers. To improve the quality and decrease the quantity of research generated, 2/3 of journals and conferences should be shut down.

I suppose univeritiy policy could marginally affect this by having the university library summarily unsubscribe from 2/3 of the journals & conferences they receive.

Be careful what you wish for; you might get it :-)

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

When a professor is first accepted to the faculty of a university, he/she must "publish or perish" for the first 5(+[?]) years. If you do not publish often enough in those first years, you are not retained.

That is done so that only productive researchers are retained. And it is not strictly volume: both the number and the quality of publications are measured. Some schools actually use citation counts: how often are your papers cited?

I personally think the requirements of universities should change so that we are not searching through a glut of papers,

It is not the university standards that are the problem, it is the standards of reviewers at journals and conferences that lead to the glut of papers. To improve the quality and decrease the quantity of research generated, 2/3 of journals and conferences should be shut down.

I suppose univeritiy policy could marginally affect this by having the university library summarily unsubscribe from 2/3 of the journals & conferences they receive.

Be careful what you wish for; you might get it :-)

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

I disagree with the author's basic assumption: that the purpose of science is to find a higher truth, for its own sake, and that benefits to humanity are merely tangential spinoffs. I think science's purpose should be to create things that will improve the human condition, especially in fields of inquiry such as biology, where the results of scientific research can have almost immediate, tangible results on people.

Science is the former: the search for knowledge for it's own sake. The latter (applying knowledge to make people's lives better) is known as "engineering."

Heard at a conference 10 years ago:

• Scientists build stuff in order to learn stuff.
• Engineers learn stuff in order to build stuff.

Crispin, who is a little of each
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

I disagree with the author's basic assumption: that the purpose of science is to find a higher truth, for its own sake, and that benefits to humanity are merely tangential spinoffs. I think science's purpose should be to create things that will improve the human condition, especially in fields of inquiry such as biology, where the results of scientific research can have almost immediate, tangible results on people.

Science is the former: the search for knowledge for it's own sake. The latter (applying knowledge to make people's lives better) is known as "engineering."

Heard at a conference 10 years ago:

• Scientists build stuff in order to learn stuff.
• Engineers learn stuff in order to build stuff.

Crispin, who is a little of each
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

Seriously, since you're the THIRD person posting this, *and* the site is performing fine, I assure you, down moderations are *extremely* necessary for your karma-whoring ass.

Except now the site is not responding, so take your sanctimonious attitude and moderate it. Your post was mostly useful to lead me to the actually useful post with a cached copy of the article :-)

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

Seriously, since you're the THIRD person posting this, *and* the site is performing fine, I assure you, down moderations are *extremely* necessary for your karma-whoring ass.

Except now the site is not responding, so take your sanctimonious attitude and moderate it. Your post was mostly useful to lead me to the actually useful post with a cached copy of the article :-)

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

For all the haughtiness in the article quote, biodiesel fuel is available in America. It is sold out of the pump at the corner gas station two blocks from my house. They charge approx. $1.80/gal. instead of the $1.40/gal. they charge for regular diesel.

Kudos to Albina Fuel.

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

For all the haughtiness in the article quote, biodiesel fuel is available in America. It is sold out of the pump at the corner gas station two blocks from my house. They charge approx. $1.80/gal. instead of the $1.40/gal. they charge for regular diesel.

Kudos to Albina Fuel.

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

Tablet PCs strike me as an opportunity for Linux to crack the desktop market. From what I've read of initial impressions of Tablet PCs, the thing that sucks the most is the crappy Microsoft inking software, that is neither easy to learn to write for (sucks worse than Graffiti) nor will it learn your writing style (sucks worse than Newton).

So, if an open source project were to arise that did a better job of writing recognition, it could be a "killer app" that gets more of the mainstream PC users interested in Linux desktops.

Caveat: no, I'm not going to do it. My research area is security, not HCI.

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

Tablet PCs strike me as an opportunity for Linux to crack the desktop market. From what I've read of initial impressions of Tablet PCs, the thing that sucks the most is the crappy Microsoft inking software, that is neither easy to learn to write for (sucks worse than Graffiti) nor will it learn your writing style (sucks worse than Newton).

So, if an open source project were to arise that did a better job of writing recognition, it could be a "killer app" that gets more of the mainstream PC users interested in Linux desktops.

Caveat: no, I'm not going to do it. My research area is security, not HCI.

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

This kind of technology is particularly important to the Army for men in the field. The reason is that in the near future, any kind of broadcast RF will result in a bomb down your shorts in a big hurry: smart weapons will home in on any radio frequency they can find, and destroy it. Thus talking on the cell phone, walkie-talkie, whatever, will mean instant death to a soldier.

Thus the Army must have some kind of non-broadcast communications system. I have no direct knowledge of how they would do it, but it isn't hard to imagine. For example, suppose low-flying satelites broadcast a signal. Handsets on the ground listen for that signal, and then point a highly directional antenna (LASER, focussed RF or microwave, whatever) at the satelite, and then starts transmitting a narrow beam.

There is not enough economic motive to develop this for purely commercial purposes. But once it is developed for the military, the commercial benefits are there to deploy it. Directional signalling means much less interference, and therefore much less consumption of precious spectrum, and less need for those pesky and expensive cell towers.

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

This kind of technology is particularly important to the Army for men in the field. The reason is that in the near future, any kind of broadcast RF will result in a bomb down your shorts in a big hurry: smart weapons will home in on any radio frequency they can find, and destroy it. Thus talking on the cell phone, walkie-talkie, whatever, will mean instant death to a soldier.

Thus the Army must have some kind of non-broadcast communications system. I have no direct knowledge of how they would do it, but it isn't hard to imagine. For example, suppose low-flying satelites broadcast a signal. Handsets on the ground listen for that signal, and then point a highly directional antenna (LASER, focussed RF or microwave, whatever) at the satelite, and then starts transmitting a narrow beam.

There is not enough economic motive to develop this for purely commercial purposes. But once it is developed for the military, the commercial benefits are there to deploy it. Directional signalling means much less interference, and therefore much less consumption of precious spectrum, and less need for those pesky and expensive cell towers.

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

Readers interested in this topic may be interested in this paper that we presented last week at USENIX LISA 2002:
Timing the Application of Security Patches for Optimal Uptime

Steve Beattie, Seth Arnold, Crispin Cowan, Perry Wagle, and Chris Wright
WireX Communications, Inc. http://wirex.com
and
Adam Shostack
Informed Security http://www.informedsecurity.com

Security vulnerabilities are discovered, become publicly known, get exploited by attackers, and patches come out. When should one apply security patches? Patch too soon, and you may suffer from instability induced by bugs in the patches. Patch too late, and you get hacked by attackers exploiting the vulnerability. We explore the factors affecting when it is best to apply security patches, providing both mathematical models of the factors affecting when to patch, and collecting empirical data to give the model practical value. We conclude with a model that we hope will help provide a formal foundation for when the practitioner should apply security updates.

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

Readers interested in this topic may be interested in this paper that we presented last week at USENIX LISA 2002:
Timing the Application of Security Patches for Optimal Uptime

Steve Beattie, Seth Arnold, Crispin Cowan, Perry Wagle, and Chris Wright
WireX Communications, Inc. http://wirex.com
and
Adam Shostack
Informed Security http://www.informedsecurity.com

Security vulnerabilities are discovered, become publicly known, get exploited by attackers, and patches come out. When should one apply security patches? Patch too soon, and you may suffer from instability induced by bugs in the patches. Patch too late, and you get hacked by attackers exploiting the vulnerability. We explore the factors affecting when it is best to apply security patches, providing both mathematical models of the factors affecting when to patch, and collecting empirical data to give the model practical value. We conclude with a model that we hope will help provide a formal foundation for when the practitioner should apply security updates.

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

Readers interested in this topic may be interested in this paper that we presented last week at USENIX LISA 2002:
Timing the Application of Security Patches for Optimal Uptime

Steve Beattie, Seth Arnold, Crispin Cowan, Perry Wagle, and Chris Wright
WireX Communications, Inc. http://wirex.com
and
Adam Shostack
Informed Security http://www.informedsecurity.com

Security vulnerabilities are discovered, become publicly known, get exploited by attackers, and patches come out. When should one apply security patches? Patch too soon, and you may suffer from instability induced by bugs in the patches. Patch too late, and you get hacked by attackers exploiting the vulnerability. We explore the factors affecting when it is best to apply security patches, providing both mathematical models of the factors affecting when to patch, and collecting empirical data to give the model practical value. We conclude with a model that we hope will help provide a formal foundation for when the practitioner should apply security updates.

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

Readers interested in this topic may be interested in this paper that we presented last week at USENIX LISA 2002:
Timing the Application of Security Patches for Optimal Uptime

Steve Beattie, Seth Arnold, Crispin Cowan, Perry Wagle, and Chris Wright
WireX Communications, Inc. http://wirex.com
and
Adam Shostack
Informed Security http://www.informedsecurity.com

Security vulnerabilities are discovered, become publicly known, get exploited by attackers, and patches come out. When should one apply security patches? Patch too soon, and you may suffer from instability induced by bugs in the patches. Patch too late, and you get hacked by attackers exploiting the vulnerability. We explore the factors affecting when it is best to apply security patches, providing both mathematical models of the factors affecting when to patch, and collecting empirical data to give the model practical value. We conclude with a model that we hope will help provide a formal foundation for when the practitioner should apply security updates.

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

The "recycle your old SIMs" has a problem induced by the exponential growth of memory sizes. Following Moore's Law, memory doubles in capacity every 18 months. The mathematics of a pile of things that double every 18 months is that the current 18-month generation is larger than the entire pile of everything that came before it.

So while you can putz around and try to integrate a bunch of differently-timed old memory cards onto a single mobo, or you can just go spend $50 on a new stick for the same benefit. The choice is pretty clear.

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

The "recycle your old SIMs" has a problem induced by the exponential growth of memory sizes. Following Moore's Law, memory doubles in capacity every 18 months. The mathematics of a pile of things that double every 18 months is that the current 18-month generation is larger than the entire pile of everything that came before it.

So while you can putz around and try to integrate a bunch of differently-timed old memory cards onto a single mobo, or you can just go spend $50 on a new stick for the same benefit. The choice is pretty clear.

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

There are countless people in the American animation world with adult stories they'd like to tell, but the only new work Cartoon Network is willing to fund is stuff about on the same intellectual and graphical level as South Park.

That's nice ... South Park is the best animated American TV series in 20 years. It is far more "intellectual" than even the Simpsons. South Park is not about fart jokes: it is about sarcastically puncturing the hypocracy of modern society, punctuated with fart jokes :-)

So while your point about Adult Swim being unwilling to undertake new adult animation, you can get down off your high horse about South Park: it is far better than what most wanna-be's produce.

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

There are countless people in the American animation world with adult stories they'd like to tell, but the only new work Cartoon Network is willing to fund is stuff about on the same intellectual and graphical level as South Park.

That's nice ... South Park is the best animated American TV series in 20 years. It is far more "intellectual" than even the Simpsons. South Park is not about fart jokes: it is about sarcastically puncturing the hypocracy of modern society, punctuated with fart jokes :-)

So while your point about Adult Swim being unwilling to undertake new adult animation, you can get down off your high horse about South Park: it is far better than what most wanna-be's produce.

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

On the contrary, this is great progress for /. This is the first time that I recall /. actually breaking a story. Normally /. only reports that someone else has actually gone and published a story, and /. is acting only as a (very convenient) news clipping service.

But this is different: /. posted the story before anyone else posted anything (I just went and looked at a bunch of sources, and the story isn't out yet as of this writing). OMG: /. doing actual journalism!

Must be a sign of the Apocalypse :-)

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

On the contrary, this is great progress for /. This is the first time that I recall /. actually breaking a story. Normally /. only reports that someone else has actually gone and published a story, and /. is acting only as a (very convenient) news clipping service.

But this is different: /. posted the story before anyone else posted anything (I just went and looked at a bunch of sources, and the story isn't out yet as of this writing). OMG: /. doing actual journalism!

Must be a sign of the Apocalypse :-)

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

You wish. For that matter, I wish, but it just isn't so. More likely scenario:

• User: I want to be able to share my schedule contacts and project info.
• admin: sure we can install exchange it will cost $$$$$$, ohh yea it also runs on Win2k.
• User: Fine, whatever, just tell me when it's done and don't bug me with details.
• admin: what about all of that mimlinda, in lisa and melissa and code red stuff?
• User: Which part of 'don't bug me with details' was unclear? Just do it.

The open source/free software world desperately needs a drop-in replacement for Exchange, where "drop-in" means "will work with Outlook without having to explain stuff to Outlook users." There are open source functional replacements, and there are proprietary drop-in replacements, but no open source drop-in replacements.

For that matter, we could use an open source drop-in replacement for Outlook, where "drop-in" means "works with Exchange." I've heard that Evolution does it, but I've also heard that Evolution employs a proprietary module to get to the Exchange Calendaring functionality.

If I'm wrong here, I'd love to be corrected. Preferably with URLs pointing to code :-)

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

You wish. For that matter, I wish, but it just isn't so. More likely scenario:

• User: I want to be able to share my schedule contacts and project info.
• admin: sure we can install exchange it will cost $$$$$$, ohh yea it also runs on Win2k.
• User: Fine, whatever, just tell me when it's done and don't bug me with details.
• admin: what about all of that mimlinda, in lisa and melissa and code red stuff?
• User: Which part of 'don't bug me with details' was unclear? Just do it.

The open source/free software world desperately needs a drop-in replacement for Exchange, where "drop-in" means "will work with Outlook without having to explain stuff to Outlook users." There are open source functional replacements, and there are proprietary drop-in replacements, but no open source drop-in replacements.

For that matter, we could use an open source drop-in replacement for Outlook, where "drop-in" means "works with Exchange." I've heard that Evolution does it, but I've also heard that Evolution employs a proprietary module to get to the Exchange Calendaring functionality.

If I'm wrong here, I'd love to be corrected. Preferably with URLs pointing to code :-)

Crispin
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Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

How is it Nintendo et. al. can program an incredibly skilled Tetris AI, but scientists at MIT cannot?

"NP-hard" means that they have a proof that the computational complexity of tetris is exponential in the number of blocks to be placed. But since there are only 4 blocks in each piece, "exponential" is not that big, so the computer can easily compute an optimal placement without breaking a sweat. "NP-hard" does not mean that that the problem is unsolvable, or even particularly difficult to solve, just that you can't scale it up to a zillion blocks without having approximately 2^zillion compute cycles.

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

How is it Nintendo et. al. can program an incredibly skilled Tetris AI, but scientists at MIT cannot?

"NP-hard" means that they have a proof that the computational complexity of tetris is exponential in the number of blocks to be placed. But since there are only 4 blocks in each piece, "exponential" is not that big, so the computer can easily compute an optimal placement without breaking a sweat. "NP-hard" does not mean that that the problem is unsolvable, or even particularly difficult to solve, just that you can't scale it up to a zillion blocks without having approximately 2^zillion compute cycles.

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

Well, duh. Tetris is based on bin packing, a classic NP-hard optimization problem. That's what makes it such a compelling game: you have to solve a really hard problem in real time.

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

Well, duh. Tetris is based on bin packing, a classic NP-hard optimization problem. That's what makes it such a compelling game: you have to solve a really hard problem in real time.

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase

Indeed. But amazingly, Hal Clement is still writing.

Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Security Hardened Linux Distribution
Available for purchase