At least 4 of the people that started Infocharms are my close friends, so they've been pretty good about sharing what's going on with the company.
Obviously, the InternetWorld show was pure media exposure. I know it, you know it, and they know it. But the "normal" press and media don't. What they're trying to do is get Wearables to the point where cellphones, Walkmans, and police radios are: simply an inobtrusive part of your garb. Remember that Sony, Panasonic, et al. do this EXACT SAME THING every time they roll out some new gadget - it goes to some electronics show, worn by some under-nourished girl or an over-pumped dude wearing clothes you'll never see on the street. It's all about hype.
Remember folks, these are supposed to be specialized devices. Just as you don't expect your Walkman to be a full-blown AV rig, your Wearable isn't going to be the place you do all your coding at. Instead, they're specific-purpose devices. Infocharms hopes to be like one of those mobile-accessory sites, where you shop at their site for any one of a bunch of specialized computers that are no bigger than a walkman. Good goal, the problem right now for them is execution and marketing (as someone pointed out). Yeah, they do need to work on that a bit...
Also, I have had discussions about the possible eye-strain for the PrivateEye and other viewers. The general concensus is that you don't use them enough to cause problems (even Thad, who has worn that thing for almost 8 years straight, probably doesn't actually look at it for more than an agregate of 1 hour/day. And he's an extreme example.). The even better news is that the follow-on displays, which are generally embedded in your glasses like a HUD, or painted directly onto your retina with a laser, are no more of a problem than a CRT. Obviously, you shouldn't spend many long hours with your eyes at a single focal point. But with wearables, you'd be really hard-pressed to do this at all, whereas with CRTs....
Oh, and in case anyone who knows is reading this, I still think the first picture looks like Dana, don't you? Hi Dana!:-)
...how hard it is to provide universal postal delivery.
First off, the US Postal Service delivers more mail than virtually ALL PRIVATE COMPANIES COMBINED. Last I looked, they were planning on moving somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 BILLION pieces of mail, packages, etc. for the 1999 Christmas Season (that's late Nov -> late Dec). UPS and FedEx might be lucky to do a half-billion each in the same time frame. Thier job is an order of magnitude more difficult than private industry.
Moving mail is an inordinately complex and complicated job. Express Delivery is actually MUCH EASIER than standard 1st-class mail. Granted, 3rd-class (bulk) and packaging (along with Priority and ExpressMail) are the same complexity as UPS and FedEx deal with, but there are several other things you forget:
The $0.33 for a stamp gets that piece of mail anywhere in the US. The great thing about universal postage is that you (the consumer) don't have to think about it; no matter where it goes, it's the same cost. I seriously doubt that a private company could manage to maintain this, with competetive forces. You'd end up with pricing structure like: $.10 for cross-town, $.15 for the next city, $.25 for the next state ( or was that $.15, since the next state is 10 miles away.. Whoops!). At the bare minimum, you'd end up with a regional cost structure - look at how UPS charges for where you send a package. And to put a more fine point on it, the USPS is cheaper than either FedEx or UPS at the same thing. Looked at book-rate shipping? Or how about comparing the cost of a overnight package?
Also, the USPS give UNIVERSAL SERVICE. Yeah, right, if you privatize things, you think anyone is going to get mail out in West Nowheresville? It's not "profitable". How many places do FedEx and UPS not deliver to that the USPS does?
Yes, perhaps the P.O. clerk isn't alot more skilled than a 7-eleven guy. But that doesn't have any affect on the reasoning behind the USPS. Some things are far better done by a government monopoly - mail service is a shining example of one. It's very efficient (for a large organization), cheap (no one in the world beats it for price/features), and dependable (UPS and FedEx lose stuff too, remember? And at not really any different frequency.).
Bottom line, the USPS works, works well, and works far better than some "privitized" system would.
Zip codes are public information. As are street addresses, with the associated occupant name. However, the issue here is not of access to the information (the Freedom of Information Act guarrantees you can get it), but the ease with which you can get it.
The FOIA says nothing about the format, or relative accessibility of the information that you request. The government is not obligated to give it to you in the format or way you want it. They just have to give it to you. People who've done research into alot of old events can atest to this: rather than get a nicely indexed and annotated set of transcripts, they get a huge stack of unlabeled and unsorted documents. Digging through them is the effort.
Honestly, I don't have a problem with it this way. The government shouldn't be in the business of neatly packaging everything for anyone who asks. Deliberately hiding the truth is one thing, but they've got alot better things than being able to give any Tom, Dick, or Harry a complete, nicely pressed and indexed book of any random information they request.
That's the value-add that those companies selling the Zip-codes have. They get the info from the govn't (which might have done some pre-sorting it for their convenience, and rightly charges for it), and then package it up for you to use in a slick format. You can get the information from any Post Office you ask, but I'm sure it's not going to be in a nice electronic format. After all, you're getting it for free.
Honestly, people, we're getting really lazy these days.
OK, I can't stand NSI. However, as another poster pointed out, this is indeed a proper action on NSI's part - the "basic" whois information is available on a central server, and you querry the responsible registrar company for the particulars.
HOWEVER, this whole boondoggle is stupid in the extreme. Honestly, I don't know who got it in their thick skull that multiple registrar agencies was a good idea. It's HORRIBLE. The DNS/Registrar system is a fundamental infrastructure requirement for the Internet to work. And, unlike virtually all other infrastructure of the Internet, it's already easily and logically divided along national boundaries. That is, DNS is segmented so that it's easy to figure out which nation (should) control which TLD.
I hope this whole multiple Registrar thing turns into a massive mess, and the gov't has to step in. Now, I know everyone here doesn't like gov't regulation and is much more libertarian, but here me out:
The US should form a quasi-governmental, NON-PROFIT organization along the lines of the USPS. It should be required to be self-sustaining (ie costs = revenue), but a non-profit. Call this org the USDR (US Domain Registrar).
OK, once the USDR is in place, guess what problems go away:
Trademark fights. yes, you might still get A & B squabbling over who owns the domain, but guess what - the USDR gets to publish and force people (legally) to adhere to a Trademark policy. Current registrar's policies aren't worth the paper their written on, and can change at a whim (or for a "favored" client). USDR's rules would be legislated, and guess how hard it is to change them?
One-stop WHOIS. OK, this isn't a real big problem, but it would be nice to go back to a single repository for domain info. All domain info.
Elimination of Paperwork. yes, it is hard to believe that I'm saying that a gov't org would actually reduce paperwork, but think: look at all the hassles you have to go through to move a domain between registrars, especially if the owner is changing.
Privacy. By having a USDR, they could legally restrict people from using the WHOIS info for SPAM, etc. And actively pursue people who do. (When was the last time a Registrar even though about actively protecting your privacy?) The USDR isn't going to be selling your info to marketing companies. It's not going to be sending you spam mail about new services its offering to inflate its stock price.
And, who knows, with a USDR, we might even get somebody to actually ENFORCE the TLD partitioning the way it should be (no more companies in.org!) and maybe even stop people from domain hording (you own the.com,.net, AND.org for your company???) Of course, this is dependent on having the USDR set up properly, with public input.
Honestly, I think there are certain things that the government can do FAR better than private industry. The DNS system is one of them. I'm tired of being exploited by the for-profit Registrar system, which only gives me MORE spam, BAD service, MORE paperwork, MORE lawsuits, and invades my privacy.
I'd trade the current system for a single gov't registrar in a heartbeat. Even if they doubled the domain fees, and made me wait twice as long to register something. My privacy is worth it, and so is the ease-of-use and efficiencies of a central authority.
For those who don't agree, think about this: ARIN assigns IP address blocks. It works (very well). If the "private" sector was so much better, why aren't we assigning IPs that way?
Following is a letter I just sent to Bruce. I'm wondering if this is more a problem with the GPL than Corel; the GPL is not sacred folks, and it may indeed have flaws that need to be fixed. Anyway, we're getting ahead of the deal.
I'm getting tired of the community going off half-cocked. Less than 24 hours after a problem DOES NOT MEAN we've looked at the things from all sides. Have we gotten REAL legal advice? From at least 3 different sources? Are we SURE of what we're doing? I'm getting really suspicious of the "witchhunt" mentality everyone someone screams "GPL violation!!!" Hysteria is bad for us, and I want us to think things through before we jump with both feet into the quicksand....
-Erik
Letter follows:
Bruce,
This is a followup to my thread on/. (found here) about the possibilities that an age restriction might be necessary to uphold the GPL.
On further thought, I was wondering about this:
The GPL requires that in order to use the software, I agree to the term (the contract) that forces me to distribute it to anyone who asks. And I must insure that the code is passed along with the GPL.
Implicit in this is that I must insure that the person I'm passing the code to must uphold (or at least legally agree to uphold) the GPL. If they cannot, or willnot, I cannot pass the code to them, since I would be responsible for breaking my contract.
This, however, is a catch-22 (or paradox) when talking about minors. The GPL requires that I give it to anyone who asks; however, I cannot give it to a minor, since I cannot insure that they abide by the contract (indeed, I have foreknowledge that they CANNOT), which is a further condition of the GPL.
Paradoxes in contract law are EXTREMELY BAD, as it immediately invalidates the contract.
Is this a flaw? Does the GPL need to be modified?
Also, here is another pertinent question: suppose I am restricted from distributing the program due to content it contains. I've looked at sections 7 & 8 of the GPLv2, and it's not clear as to what the ramifications are in this situation. My reading is that any legally required restriction on code makes that code ineligible for coverage by the GPL (in otherwords, the author cannot GPL the program, nor can GPL'd code be included in the program).
Indeed, you do have a point that I forgot: the copyright on the code remainds, so a minor who gets the code from the FSF can't sell it to someone else for inclusion in their code.
However, provisions in the License are still invalid, since the "sale" was directly to a minor.
You are correct that passing something through a intermediary cannot remove rights such as copyright. However, contract law is NOT copyright, and CAN be removed by selling/transferring the product to a party unable to agree to the contract.
Actually, I just thought of something that is interesting: look at the "Not for public performance" and "Not for rental" agreements on most Video/DVD/audio products. Now, normally, if I buy a DVD, I'm licensed to only use the product in my home. However, if the store sells it to my 13-year-old, legally, the kid should be able to set up a movie theater, and charge admission. He's not violating the copyright of the DVD, he's just not bound to the License restriction. And if he sells the DVD to an adult, well, the adult hasn't agreed to any contract, either, so...
I'd be interested to hear from an IP lawyer about this. Unforatunely (or fortunately), IANAL.
OK, remember that using software is NOT the same as buying other forms of intellectual property (such as a book). This is stupid, but it's currently the way things work.
When I get a piece of software, I enter into a contract (the terms of which are in the License) between the entity distributing the software and myself. The contract specifies what I can and cannot do with the software I receive.
Unfortunately, in this country, minors are screwed, as they are unable to enter into legally binding contracts (enless you are an emancipated minor, which means you're effectively an adult).
When Corel restricts their downloads to adults, that's actually GOOD. It means that the adult downloading the software is legally responsible for seeing that the contract (eg License) is followed. The adult is of course allowed to share the software with minors, but it is the ADULT that is responsible for making sure the License is upheld.
This is something the Free Software may have overlooked. Think about this scenario:
Typical 16-year old kid downloads gcc from prep.ai.mit.edu (oops, I mean ftp.gnu.org). Kid reads license, then realizes that he's not bound by it, since he's not of age. FSF didn't bother to check if he was allowed to get the software, so BANG! the license is void, and the 16 year old can do WHATEVER HE WANTS with the code. That includes making it into a proprietary product, or selling it to a company that then incorporates it into their company. And that's all legal, because the distributor (FSF) didn't bother to check to see if the receiver was allowed to enter into a contract.
You don't see this problem in ordinary stuff, because when I buy virtually anything BUT software, I'm actually buying the item, and not entering into some weird use-contract. The laws are completely different for actual transfer of ownership.
Unfortunately, but it may actually be the BEST thing that comes from Corel Linux is that they're being really paranoid about covering all their bases (well, actually, just covering their ass) with this thing.
I'm sorry the world has to be like this, but if we want to play in the big leagues, well, we have to live by all the rules.
1. My point on the funding thing was that vouchers aren't required to fix this. People seem to see vouchers as the only method for equitable funding of schools; this is false.
2. My fault. I was assuming you had taken the $8000 from the $300b / number of US students formulae. Sorry.
3. No, I wasn't claiming that under a school voucher system only the rich go to the best schools. I was pointing out that OVER TIME, the inherent advantages of being rich as relates to school performance would lead to the best schools being filled with the best students, the vast majority being rich. Conversely, the worst schools would be filled with the poorest students, which would be overwhelmingly from the poorer sections; thus, you'd end up with complete social stratification, and no hope of improvement withing the voucher system. It would be no better (and probably worse) than the current system.
4. & 5. (see follows):
As another poster here pointed out, if we wanted the "most efficient" system of public schools, vouchers would indeed work. You would end up with a system that looks identical to the college system in the US: the best students get the best schools, and the worst students get the worst schools. You don't get "balanced" schools, you get specialized ones. And massive stratification. That is a horrible idea. For it fails in the fundamental reason for public education:
Everyone is to be given a standard basic education that the society deems necessary for it to have.
Put it another way, Public Education is there to insure that everyone starts out with a reasonably even playing field.
The problem with school vouchers, private, and parochial schools is that they promote the attitude of (pardon the expression) "Fuck you, I got mine". There is no sense of community or societal responsibility. People not involved in something have no stake in whether or not it succeeds. With an issue so fundamental to the success of our country as basic education is, my argument is that it is both UNWISE, and ultimately DESTRUCTIVE to let people "opt out" of the public school system. By promoting the voucher system and private/parochial schools, you let those who have abandon those who have not (I speak in both terms of money and ability). Having a universal, compulsory, single school system, you insure that everyone gets the decent education and that everyone has a stake in making sure that "decent" education is damn good. Sure, you may hold back the top students, but that's where the college system steps in and works so well. And, as I've pointed out before, honestly, the Standard Education isn't about fulfilling everyone's complete potential, it's about insuring that we have a common base for all citizen to work from.
Actually, tenure in the public schools PROTECTS people who have unpopular views. That includes creationism.
Now, you can't teach creationism exclusively, because that doesn't fit with the established curriculum, and you can't use it to advocate a religion (since that crosses the Church/State boundary), but, honestly, there is simply no reason why a biology teacher could not present his or her students with it as an alternate explanation to Evolution. Just the same as you can study the Bible in Literature class - study it as a Scientific theory (or as Literary exposition, in the case of the Bible), and not Religious Dogma, and you're fine.
Tenure has it's downfalls, and teacher's unions are not perfect. However, I'm FAR more mistrustful of School Boards, which happen to be one of the most cravenly pandering organizations I've ever seen. Until the School Board (and local control over the school system) is abolished, I'll keep the Union and Tenure, thank you.
Most areas REQUIRE teachers to get continuing education. So many credit hours every so many years. (My parents have to do about the equivalent of 2 University courses every 5 years). The big problem here is that schools require that these classes be taken ON THE TEACHERS OWN TIME. That means evenings and summer.
How many businesses would get away with requiring an employee to take a class AND work a full day? Don't like it, well, tough, because you'll be fired if you don't, and by the way, did we say that ALL other businesses have the same policy? What, you wouldn't like that? Yeah, I though so.
Also, people seem to be of the opinion that "wire up the school, and presto! Magic Learning!" You need to spend a fair amount of time teaching the teachers how to wisely use the new resource, and even afterwards, remember that this is only a resource, not the Super Magic Teacher Replacement. In many ways, the 'Net is like a library, WITHOUT a card catalog or librarian. Too much information, too disorganized, and most of it of questionable or poor quality.
OK, I really hate having to respond to people like this, but this really burns my ass.
First off, the $300b is TOTAL OVER THE ENTIRE US. And, in case you aren't familiar with the statistics, school funding in the US is about as uneven as you can get, primarily due to the fact that most of it comes from local property tax. Of that $300b, maybe $50b or so is evenly distributed. The other $250b is concentrated in the school districts in wealthier neighborhoods. So, no, your Indianapolis Public School is almost certainly NOT getting $8000 per student. I'd guess maybe half that, or less.
Secondly, the major reasons why public schools have gone downhill in the last 20 years has nothing to do with teachers and the schools, and less to do with funding; it's all about society. Schools (and by extension, teachers) no longer simply get to teach knowledge - they are expected to be surrogate families, social workers, psycologists, policemen, and daycare centers. The family and community structure that used to provide this have dropped their responsibilies squarely in the lap of the schools. So, no wonder why they're doing poorly.
As for school vouchers: this is one of the WORST IDEAS to ever come up. Let me tell you why:
Assume everyone gets vouchers. OK, everyone wants to go to School A, which is the "best". Since everyone can't go (there is only room for so many), School A takes the top students. Those denied by A go to School B, where the process is repeated. So, eventually, you get the best students in the best school, with the worst students in the worst school. And no impetus for change. This is an awful scenario. You create and perpetuate WITH GOVERNMENT SANCTION a whole underclass of insuffiently enducated people. Basically, it's a completely elitest view.
For societal reasons, it's far better to have a mix of class and income levels in the same school. School vouchers tend to create a system almost identical to the elite private schools, where only the rich and privileged go to the best schools (the rich and privileged tend to have the stablest family life, which is a primary indicator for school performance). After awhile, a school voucher system would end up looking like the segregated systems of the South in the '40s and '50s. School vouchers are nothing more than an updated Seperate, But Equal ploy. Oh, yeah, and that was such a wonderful idea.
The main reason alot of the privately funded (eg. Edison Project) schools do so well is the parental involvement. Having parents and the community involved in the school is the best way for it to succeed. Public schools have forgotten this, and there is absolutely no indication that a switch to vouchers would help in any way.
Fundamentally, I think there is only one way to really save the US school system: fund them exclusively via income tax, fund all school equally, and REQUIRE all children to attend PUBLIC schools. That's right. From a societal standpoint, private and parochial schools are BAD. Just as many people advocate (and many countries require) univeral military service to create a common ground for all citizens, we should require everyone to attend the same school system. That way, we ALL have a stake in how well it's doing, and ensure that EVERYONE gets a fair start.
What I think the NSA is saying is indeed "Give us more money", but one neds to look further than that.
I think the root of the matter is more complex: it's the same as the US Millitary is facing. A job that is much more complex and difficult than before, with the expectation from the civilians that they do it with the same amount of money.
When this happens, there are only 2 solutions: either you give the organization more money to cope with all the additional responsibility they have to take on to satisfy their mission, or you change the mission. It's that simple.
What really needs to happen at the policy maker-level in the US gov't is a hard look at what we really want our National Security-related organizations to do. Hard priorities need to be made, that reflect current (and reasonably anticipated) realities, not the assumptions of 15 or 20 years ago. Then, the organizations need to be told the new mission definitions, and funded accordingly.
This isn't easy. Many organizations have a large institutional inertia, which resists change, and so far there has been little leadership from the policy-makers to do a complete overhaul of US National Security policy and directives to the organizations. It needs to be done; steps are being taken, but they need to be faster and more sweeping.
Hell, I don't have any problem giving the NSA more money, as long as they have a rational mission that reflects current realities, which I'm not so sure they do anymore.
OK, I get rather pissed off when people generally blame teachers for the sorry state of affairs in US Education. Both my parents are teachers, and a large number of their friends are, so, while I am considerably biased here, I also have a very big insight on what goes on in a teacher's life, and how this affects the schooling of the typical student.
While there are many exceptions, teachers in general are not the "I failed at everything else, why don't I become a teacher" type of person. The job simply gets rid of people who have that sort of attitude. Granted, most are not the "super-inspirational, my students mean absolutely everything to me" type, but, most are the "I'm doing an important job and take it seriously" type. Virtually every teacher I've met cares about what he/she is doing, though they can't always get really involved with every student they have. I mean, a typical HS teacher has maybe 150 students each year; you want them to adopt each one as a new family member?
Teachers do have "in-service" days throughout the year (I remember Mom & Dad had about 3-4), where they do get professional training. Alot of this (that is, most of it) centers around teaching - that is, learning about things in the teaching field, NOT specific in-subject knowledge.
Many, if not most, school districts require their teachers to take several credit-hours worth of in-subject coursework every 5 years or so. What that usually works out to be is 2 university-style classes every 5 years or so. This is a good thing, and probably would immensely help the problem of staying current. The biggest loophole here is what courses are allowed to satisfy the requirement - many places it's virtually any coursework. This needs to be better defined and promoted.
The pay sucks, even considering the raises made in the late 80s and early 90s. Teachers get even less than most other public servants, so expecting them to go out of their way to advance themselves altruistically is completel selfish on our (the public's) part.
As one poster suggested, they could keep themselves current by simply 'surfing the 'Net each night. OK, fine. My parents got up at 6am to get ready for work. They usually got home by about 4:30pm. And they usually did about 2 hours of homework (lesson planning/grading/project work) each night. I'm sorry, but expecting a person to do work OUTSIDE OF THEIR EMPLOYED HOURS simply to do their job is not only unfair, that's the definition of exploitation. In essence, you want them to work for free; everyone gets mad that the business owner who works his ex-cons for 10 hours, but only pays them for 8. How is this any different?
Textbooks and materials are a problem. It's quite expensive to replace them to keep up with the rate of knowledge expansion. And providing extra materials can be a royal pain. And, let's face it here, is the fact that your Chemistry book only lists 108 elements (instead of the now-118) really important? Schools are in place to teach fundamental knowledge. Yes, some of it changes, but the vast majority is very stable. I agree that it's important to update the History books that make no mention of anything later than Truman, or the Biology material that stops right after Watson & Crick discover DNA. But really, most of the material produced in the last 20 years is completely solid. It's not wrong, it's just not complete as it could be.
And finally, a word about those wonderful "summer vacations". People, the 3-month "I don't do anything" vacation of teachers is a complete myth. Firstly, most schools are now ending in mid-June, and starting again in late-August. So, your 12 weeks is really 10 (and more likely 8) weeks. Second, teachers have meetings and multi-day seminars in the summer. Not every week, but definately once every month. And, alot of teachers use the summer months to do their required "update" coursework (see above). After all, doing it during the school year is really tough. And, most teachers I know go in to school at least several times over vacation to do things that they simply didn't have time to while the kids were there (inventory, setup of new equipment, sorting, etc). So, that nice lazy 12 weeks (or, 60 business days) is really a much shorter, and frequently interrupted period of perhaps about 30 business days.
In the long term, if you want to keep teachers updated, you have to pay for it in increased school taxes. What a better teacher? How about this: Every 4 years, a teacher spends a semester where they teach a half-day, and spend the other half day taking unversity classwork AT THE PUBLIC EXPENSE. PAY for 2 or 3-day seminars where the teachers get TOP-NOTCH instructors from relevant fields to come lecture them on advances in their field of instruction. And, even better, have the School Boards LISTEN TO THE TEACHERS when they tell them what works, and what doesn't. Having school boards (and for that matter, state legislatures) dictate exactly what should/should not be taught in the classroom is STUPID. They don't deal with the kids. They don't have professional degrees in the subject. They don't really get it. What other profession has complete outsiders dictate how they work to them, and yet expects them to do a good job? "Oh, excuse me, Mr. Engineer, but we can't have you design/build that bridge without direction from our committee - oh, and did we tell you that our committe consists of a minister, a librarian, a policeman, two shopkeepers, and a streetsweeper? They're be alot of help, and they're really concerned..."
When people look at the leaked numbers supposing to approximate the budget of NSA (last I saw, the estimate was in the $20billion range) and the number of people (maybe 30,000 or so), everyone seems to assume that they're all codebreaking wizards. This is stupid - it's like assuming that the CIA is full of James Bond people. What people seem to forget is what the money actually goes to, and you'll see why the NSA is having problems keeping up with it's mission:
Huge chunks of the budget go to the development, manufacture, and maintenance of reconisance satellites. While the NRO shares responsibility for operational use and control of many of these satellites, these puppies cost as much as $2billion a pop to MAKE. With the increasing demand by the US Armed Services for realtime battlefield data, the NSA has had to increase the number of satellites it orbits. Last time I looked, we had something like 8 KH-11 (and followon) low-orbit visual sats, at least two dozen radio-intercept sats, at least that many radar sats, and maybe a dozen other types. Figuring that each one costs on the order of $1billion to develop/make/launch/maintain, and you use it for about a decade before it's gone, around $8 billion each year goes to simply running the satelite section of the NSA.
Vast numbers of NSA employees are working as liasons with other Federal Agencies. CIA, DIA, FBI, DOJ (oh, yeah, them too), and the various Armed Services Intelligence sections all have substantial "NSA" people working with them. This has gotten alot "worse" (from the NSA prospective), since virtually none of the other organizations has the kind of experience the NSA has, and have been calling on the NSA more and more for assistance. Most of the FBI knowledge about hacking, cracking, and sigint has been from the NSA. And they're getting tapped for help from people that 10 years ago they never would have dreamed of being require to talk to: FAA, DOT, FEMA, and even the Dept of Agriculture.
In the last decade, with the rise of the Internet, the NSA has started to run field operations, something they never had to do before on any real scale. Alot of this is in conjunction with the FBI and law enforcement, but there's involvement with FEMA and even things like the DOE and NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission). Alot of these teams are doing security auditing (ala "Sneakers"), but even more are simply helping the department in question set up proper defences and auditing proceedures. Never underestimate the cost (in dollars, people, and beauracracy) of running a real field operations branch.
With all these extra "duties" that people seem to forget about, I doubt that the NSA spends more than $1b on actual codebreaking each year. And, from the people I know that are involved in some of this, I've gleanned something that I think is significant: While I believe that the NSA retains probably a 10-year lead in the mathematics of cryptography, they have now less than 2 years lead in actual hardware Moore's Law has been very hard on the NSA. While they used to be able to count on having not only unheard-of advances in crypto knowledge but much, much faster and more advanced computers, they now no longer have the significantly advanced machinery. Being perhaps only a single interation ahead, rather than 4 or 5, cuts their advantage down by an order of magnitude.
So, you get an organization that faces an explosion of new requirements, heavier demands in it's old field(s), and a decrease in technological advantage over it's opponents, and well, Things Are Not Going Well At The NSA.
Mind you, they're still very sharp, and what they put their mind and resources to, I'm pretty sure will happen; the problem is now, that in order to focus on a problem, they end up neglecting other areas.
Fun, Fun, Fun!
-Erik
Disclaimer: I do not work for the NSA (or, at least, I can't say so...)
...they're missing that critical element: usable application software.
Let's face it, the most viable NCs possible right now are stripped-down Linux/*BSD boxes that act as X-Terminals on steriods. The hardware and the base OS/operating environment (think GNOME/KDE) is there and ready-for-prime-time. However, think who the real end user is and what they want: Stupid User Apps.
That's right. These things go on the desktop of secretaries, marketing droids, and PHBs. People who need really-simple-to-use software that allows them to do they're job in a completely non-technical way.
In other words, they need a good Office Suite, a fully-integrated mailer/calendar/meeting planner, a reasonable draw/paint/photo editor, and random small apps that aren't immediately obvious, but nonetheless important (Quicken, anyone?). There are apps in all the above categories available for Linux (StarOffice, Netscape, GIMP, XPaint, etc.), but let's face it, none of them can really be considered ready-for-prime time. In a year or so for several, but not for awhile for many others.
Also, there are all those nice little specialty programs that people need that aren't available yet. I mentioned Quicken. A good D-P program like PageMaker is also a need. As is something like Visio and MS Project. These are things that the target audience uses on a daily basis, and until 1st-rate programs are available for Linux NCs, the NCs are doomed to fail.
A long step in the right direction would be for Oracle to seriously fund the Blackdown Java project (I mean, to the tune of a dozen developers and a $1m or so). Having a seriously good JVM for Linux would really help - it would stimulate the development of Java-based apps, since the ISVs could count on having both the NC and PC markets to sell to.
The concept is sound. If Oracle really wants it to sell, then they need to either (a) create an evnironment that ISVs will willingly plug the needed holes, or (b) fund development of such work themselves. I don't see either happening, though I could be wrong. Until then, NCs will be a curiousity.
... are in the procps package. Specifically, in the proc/sysinfo.c file.
I gave it a cursory look over, and yes, the time is read directly from/proc/uptime. OK, so where do these values get set? (and the values in/proc/uptime are in seconds).
So we peek at the kernel source... Lo and Behold, in include/linux/kernel.h we find that uptime is a long int. 64-bits, that is. An even better explanation of the jiffies vs. seconds calculations are in fs/proc/array.c.
The final answer is: uptime is a long integer (2^63, since it seems to be signed), with values in seconds. So, it should wrap around after being up for 2.9e11 years or so ( almost 300 billion years).
I wouldn't worry.
-Erik
If you have the source, all things become transparent...
I used to work at the MIT Media Lab in direct conjunction with several of the pioneers of the field. I've listened to Thad pontificate on the various uses of them for almost 5 years now, so I've got a good idea where you're going to see them:
Places where the PDA is king right now, particularly in the vertically-integrated market. People like UPS and FedEx, inventory at warehouses/supermarkets/etc., airline checkins, etc. Alot of those places would greatly benefit from having more horsepower (and also a network connection).
Aids for the disabled. The current crop is good enough to do decent sign-language interpretation, and I'd expect wearbles would be a boon to people with limited sight or hearing, since they could use them to do amplification and/or enhancement.
The Military. The US Army is absolutely bonkers of this kind of stuff - it fits so nicely into their LandWarrior2000 concept of the fully-wired warrior.
As a replacement for the Laptop, which, let's face it, is a rather cruddy computer. I'd expect the laptop to get completely killed by the wearable within 5 years.
Specialty medical apps like surgeon's or ER doctor's aids (nothing like being able to look up all the possible drug interactions without taking your hands out of the GSW), or a link from the ER to the Ambulance crew.
The big stumbling blocks to wearables right now are the displays (though take a look at the one Thad is wearing in the above picture) and battery life. I expect displays to be solved within 2 years at the outside, after which it's really simply a matter of production. The battery life is a harder issue, but it's being worked on too.
I look at Xybernaut, and think that they are targeting the wrong market first - they're doing consumer applications, which I don't expect to be feasible for 4-6 years; instead, they should be focusing on the specialty and vertical markets, where the need and demand is NOW.
Disclaimer - Thad is a personal friend of mine, and I think his shit is cool. So I might be biased.
I do agree with your observations that system componets have NOT kept pace with CPU advances, and indeed, there seems to be wide concensus that the main bottlenecks these days (at least in the x86 world) are off-chip.
That said, I think you are making several confusing suggestions:
128-bit CPUs. What you seem to be advocating is pure-128-bit, which the Hitachi chip is NOT. There is really no reason to go to 128 bits internally in a CPU - 64 bits provides more than sufficient address space (18 billion billion), and since very little requires the larger word size, the chip will be constantly doing calculations with smaller-than-optimal chunks of data. That is, most data will typically be done in 32-bit or 64-bit chunks, rather than 128-bit. What you are referring to in the Hitachi chip is the data bus width (which is indeed 128-bits wide). Internal processing is still in 64-bit chunks.
Remember that wider data paths are more expensive than narrow ones. Chipsets cost more too. We have the current architecture very much as a result of cost pressures. Better does not always win in the market (see the Alpha as an example).
Off-chip and on-chip data communications CANNOT be at the same rate. Since to do off-die communications you have to go alot further, you have to up the voltage, which reduces speed.
You talk of single point of failure. Anything that you suggest will not help (simply making a machine SMP does not help redunancy in any meaningful way).
I would like to see people concentrate more on holistic system performance, but let's keep everything in perspective....
-Erik
Honestly, I could care less about faster Athalons
on
700 MHz Athlon
·
· Score: 5
No, this isn't a flame...
What holds my interest in the Athalons isn't the tit-for-tat clockrate match with Intel (I mean, who really cares who owns the fastest CPU this month?). What I'm far more interested in AMD producing is the SMP versions.
To me, the biggest pain-in-the-ass right now is the P3 / Xeon product split. The slot1 architecture limits me to 2 CPUs - if I want more, I have to get Xeons, which are a huge cost uplift. Here's a good example:
A Compaq 1850R and a 6400R are very similar machines in everything but the CPU architecture (yes, there are a couple of other important advantages in the 6400, but not that big). I pay about $4000 for a 1 CPU 1850R, and $1300 for an additional CPU. For a 1 CPU 6400R, it's $8000, plus $1800/CPU.
Now, if AMD can come out with a chipset/motherboard that has 4-8 slots, AND I can stick the "commodity" (ie non-Ultra) Athalons in it, well, then, GoodBye Intel! AMD needs to realize that there is a huge opportunity here at the P3 / Xeon split, a place that they can heavily exploit. All the better, since Intel will NOT be able to remedy the situation, other than lower the cost of Xeons, something they are loath to do.
Having an single architecture that will linearly scale up through at least 8 (and preferably to 12 or so) would be a real advantage to AMD. I would much prefer to see them press ahead with putting into production large SMP-capable chipsets and such than worry about getting the absolute highest megahertz CPU out.
Just in case I'm not totally clear here, what I want is to be able to use the SAME CPU from the low-end machines to the high end ones. Now, I know I'll get better performance by buying the Athalon Ultras (much more L2 cache), but I'd at least like the option of using the base Athalons, rather than be forced to use the more expensive chips, just because the manufacture want me to (that's the reason for the Slot1 vs Slot2 division - it's a pure Intel marketing decision).
One of the things I like most about IBM's Open Source moves is the license.
This isn't a "It should be BSD/GPL/MPL" post. I'm not going to discuss which is "better" (ther is no answer). Instead, I think the the IBM license is almmost optimal for a commercial organization that wants to contribute to Open Source.
Why do I say this? Well, it not only is quite friendly to other licenses, it also adresses two critical issues for companies: Patent Licensing and assumed Liability. These are not really well defined in most of the other Open Source licenses. IBM did a good job with it.
I'd really like to see the Open Source community rally around 3 or 4 licenses. Rather than having the huge proliferation that we have now, I think it would be really beneficial to have a couple of licenses, each tailored to a specific group. That is, make a definative statement about the goals each of the 3-4 licenses, and really, really encourage (with a bat, if necessary (wink,wink)) companies to pick one of them, rather than make their own. I think the IBM license is good enough that it should be one of the 3-4 (I'll leave the other choices for you to war over...)
Now, I'd be really happy if IBM created a Open Source highly-tuned VM/java library set....
But I HATE these stupid "Reader's Choice", "Editor's Choice", "Best of 19xx", and all those other "awards" that magazines (in particular, but not exclusively) dole out on an annual (or even more frequently) basis.
They always seem to miss several major contenders for the "award", and often are nothing more than a popularity contest. Even if they pretend to be based on merit, it's the opinion of Editors that get the choices in front of you to begin with.
I don't want a popularity poll. I can get that from marketing material. You know, 4-color glossies? I want more, in-depth, substantive reviews of stuff. I want to know how to make stuff work together (something you hardly ever see anyone write about). I want to hear about stuff that I might not otherwise, so I can check it out myself.
I'm not going to trust people I have no idea about as to the relative worth of a product that wins some "award". I'm going to talk to the 2 dozen friends and collegues that actually do the stuff to find out what works.
Leave the "awards" to the Entertainment folks. That's about all they're good for.
We did alot of neural network work at the Media Lab (using them with HMMs are really popular now in "intelligence" systems).
I can see this as being particularly useful for some applications, like the cellular network example the article had. However, there are several problems with Neural Nets that don't make them a panacea, or a wiz-bang solution to duplicating the human brain.
You have to train a neural net. Don't ever underestimate the time, difficulty, and fragility of this step. In order to use a neural net, you have to use a very large data set to intialize it (the dataset tends to grow exponentially as the complexity of what you are trying to do increases). You have to pick the right dataset, which can be extremely difficult if others haven't already figured it out.
Neural nets are by no means generalized learning computers. You can't just set it up, turn it on, and it "learns" about something.
Programming is the biggest hurdle to usefulness of neural nets, not hardware. We haven't really figured out how to appropriately model many of the possible problems that neural nets might be useful to solve.
The last point is the biggest hinderance to neural net usage - we don't really know how to apply it to generalized (or even many specific) problem areas.
This is not to belittle to accomplishment. There are quite a few well-defined areas that neural nets are extremely useful, and we should find more as time progresses and our knowledge increases.
Just don't expect any kind of general intelligence system to be coming soon. It won't.
This is admittedly going to be biased, because I'm a full-time SysAdmin and Network Architect, which is probably a bit different than the typical/.-er.
Sessions where we can give vendors feedback on their products. I'd love it if most of the vendors (or say, a small group of 3-4 vendors who sell very similar things) had a 1 hour or so session where they asked the audience: What do You Want? What are you missing from our current lineups? Where should we go? Doing this in a room with 50-60 other like-minded individuals is so much more productive than talking to one of the people at some booth 1-to-1. To use a marketing buzzword, you get alot more "synergy".
Vendors who aren't solely concentrated on selling Linux. I know it's nice to have IBM there, but the people in most of the booths tend to be extremely focused on Linux. While this is nice, few of us run Linux-only shops. I want to know how to run X server/OS with Y server/OS with Z application. People who I can talk about heterogeneous offerings from the same company are really needed.
Networking products that run under Linux. I know this isn't something the show organizers can do, but dammit, I want all those network management tools to work on Linux, too. It's taking the tools vendors WAYYYYY too long to port.
Real BOFs. The BOFs are starting to become lecture-like. A step in the right direction is to do away with the "designated speaker" thing at a BOF; make the emphasis the topic, and not the person who's going to be leading it.
PUT THE CONFERENCES IN PLACES THAT MAKE SENSE, AT TIMES THAT MAKE SENSE. No one wants to go to New Orleans in mid-July (hello, USENIX?) Or Seattle in mid-March. Yet idiots schedule conferences then. Tip: put conferences in the South from Oct-April, and in the North May-Sept. And please, put them near interesting things. When you have the conference completely across town from anything interesting, it really sucks. Geeks need to get out, too, and having to taxi all over the place is a royal pain.
Try to encourage people to have SMALLER post-conference thingys. The RedHat parties were fun, but seriously, I have a lot more fun with 2 dozen people than 200. And I get alot more out of them.
Oh, and as much as everyone likes the bikini girls holding the new Server X2000, please don't. Eye candy is fine, but don't insult my intelligence, and don't pander to me. Also, it's a bit like throwing a glass of water in the face of a man dying of dehydration.:-)
I sincerely believe that Thin Clients are the way of the future, especially for businesses. That said, it seems that people are forgetting a couple of things when they impliment them these days...
You really should do rendering on the client. It used to make sense to do it on the server, since CPU was expensive, but now days, with really cheap high performance CPU and Video, it's stupid NOT to do it on the client.
Bandwidth. Alot of this is related to the above (drawing/rendering on the client cuts down seriously on rendering requirements), but please, Mr Thin Client maker, a dedicated 100Mbps to the desktop and a Gigbit ethernet for the server is ludicrous (hello, Sun???). Do some work, and at least have a protocol compressor on both ends (as there are for X).
Memory and swap. OK, I know you shouldn't need swap space for a thin client (everything runs on the server, right?) but it sure would be nice to have local caching for some stuff. Barring that, please have enough local memory to do proper caching? I see alot of Thin Clients with 8-12MB, which isn't anywhere enough to do decent caching. Again, bandwidth this the limiting factor here...
WinCE, while in and of itself isn't a horrible thing for Thin Clients, depends on Window NT TS, which is one incredibly nasty hack. Personally, I would shoot anyone suggesting we use a NT TS solution.
Linux is great for Thin Clients. Hopefully, the Compaq clients above are well-designed (basically, you should have a sophisticated X-Terminal). The thing here that Compaq and other thin-client makers need to pound on hard is: APPS, APPS, APPS. Being able to run StarOffice is a godsend, but they need to provide alot more to make a Thin Client truly useful.
With the backing of Compaq, I see this as a good thing for thin-clients. Hopefully, we will see alot more software developers produce X-based apps for the community at large.
Slashdot Mirror
At least 4 of the people that started Infocharms are my close friends, so they've been pretty good about sharing what's going on with the company.
Obviously, the InternetWorld show was pure media exposure. I know it, you know it, and they know it. But the "normal" press and media don't. What they're trying to do is get Wearables to the point where cellphones, Walkmans, and police radios are: simply an inobtrusive part of your garb. Remember that Sony, Panasonic, et al. do this EXACT SAME THING every time they roll out some new gadget - it goes to some electronics show, worn by some under-nourished girl or an over-pumped dude wearing clothes you'll never see on the street. It's all about hype.
Remember folks, these are supposed to be specialized devices. Just as you don't expect your Walkman to be a full-blown AV rig, your Wearable isn't going to be the place you do all your coding at. Instead, they're specific-purpose devices. Infocharms hopes to be like one of those mobile-accessory sites, where you shop at their site for any one of a bunch of specialized computers that are no bigger than a walkman. Good goal, the problem right now for them is execution and marketing (as someone pointed out). Yeah, they do need to work on that a bit...
Also, I have had discussions about the possible eye-strain for the PrivateEye and other viewers. The general concensus is that you don't use them enough to cause problems (even Thad, who has worn that thing for almost 8 years straight, probably doesn't actually look at it for more than an agregate of 1 hour/day. And he's an extreme example.). The even better news is that the follow-on displays, which are generally embedded in your glasses like a HUD, or painted directly onto your retina with a laser, are no more of a problem than a CRT. Obviously, you shouldn't spend many long hours with your eyes at a single focal point. But with wearables, you'd be really hard-pressed to do this at all, whereas with CRTs....
Oh, and in case anyone who knows is reading this, I still think the first picture looks like Dana, don't you? Hi Dana! :-)
-Erik
...how hard it is to provide universal postal delivery.
First off, the US Postal Service delivers more mail than virtually ALL PRIVATE COMPANIES COMBINED. Last I looked, they were planning on moving somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 BILLION pieces of mail, packages, etc. for the 1999 Christmas Season (that's late Nov -> late Dec). UPS and FedEx might be lucky to do a half-billion each in the same time frame. Thier job is an order of magnitude more difficult than private industry.
Moving mail is an inordinately complex and complicated job. Express Delivery is actually MUCH EASIER than standard 1st-class mail. Granted, 3rd-class (bulk) and packaging (along with Priority and ExpressMail) are the same complexity as UPS and FedEx deal with, but there are several other things you forget:
The $0.33 for a stamp gets that piece of mail anywhere in the US. The great thing about universal postage is that you (the consumer) don't have to think about it; no matter where it goes, it's the same cost. I seriously doubt that a private company could manage to maintain this, with competetive forces. You'd end up with pricing structure like: $.10 for cross-town, $.15 for the next city, $.25 for the next state ( or was that $.15, since the next state is 10 miles away.. Whoops!). At the bare minimum, you'd end up with a regional cost structure - look at how UPS charges for where you send a package. And to put a more fine point on it, the USPS is cheaper than either FedEx or UPS at the same thing. Looked at book-rate shipping? Or how about comparing the cost of a overnight package?
Also, the USPS give UNIVERSAL SERVICE. Yeah, right, if you privatize things, you think anyone is going to get mail out in West Nowheresville? It's not "profitable". How many places do FedEx and UPS not deliver to that the USPS does?
Yes, perhaps the P.O. clerk isn't alot more skilled than a 7-eleven guy. But that doesn't have any affect on the reasoning behind the USPS. Some things are far better done by a government monopoly - mail service is a shining example of one. It's very efficient (for a large organization), cheap (no one in the world beats it for price/features), and dependable (UPS and FedEx lose stuff too, remember? And at not really any different frequency.).
Bottom line, the USPS works, works well, and works far better than some "privitized" system would.
-Erik
Think before you spew...
Zip codes are public information. As are street addresses, with the associated occupant name. However, the issue here is not of access to the information (the Freedom of Information Act guarrantees you can get it), but the ease with which you can get it.
The FOIA says nothing about the format, or relative accessibility of the information that you request. The government is not obligated to give it to you in the format or way you want it. They just have to give it to you. People who've done research into alot of old events can atest to this: rather than get a nicely indexed and annotated set of transcripts, they get a huge stack of unlabeled and unsorted documents. Digging through them is the effort.
Honestly, I don't have a problem with it this way. The government shouldn't be in the business of neatly packaging everything for anyone who asks. Deliberately hiding the truth is one thing, but they've got alot better things than being able to give any Tom, Dick, or Harry a complete, nicely pressed and indexed book of any random information they request.
That's the value-add that those companies selling the Zip-codes have. They get the info from the govn't (which might have done some pre-sorting it for their convenience, and rightly charges for it), and then package it up for you to use in a slick format. You can get the information from any Post Office you ask, but I'm sure it's not going to be in a nice electronic format. After all, you're getting it for free.
Honestly, people, we're getting really lazy these days.
-Erik
OK, I can't stand NSI. However, as another poster pointed out, this is indeed a proper action on NSI's part - the "basic" whois information is available on a central server, and you querry the responsible registrar company for the particulars.
HOWEVER, this whole boondoggle is stupid in the extreme. Honestly, I don't know who got it in their thick skull that multiple registrar agencies was a good idea. It's HORRIBLE. The DNS/Registrar system is a fundamental infrastructure requirement for the Internet to work. And, unlike virtually all other infrastructure of the Internet, it's already easily and logically divided along national boundaries. That is, DNS is segmented so that it's easy to figure out which nation (should) control which TLD.
I hope this whole multiple Registrar thing turns into a massive mess, and the gov't has to step in. Now, I know everyone here doesn't like gov't regulation and is much more libertarian, but here me out:
The US should form a quasi-governmental, NON-PROFIT organization along the lines of the USPS. It should be required to be self-sustaining (ie costs = revenue), but a non-profit. Call this org the USDR (US Domain Registrar).
OK, once the USDR is in place, guess what problems go away:
And, who knows, with a USDR, we might even get somebody to actually ENFORCE the TLD partitioning the way it should be (no more companies in .org!) and maybe even stop people from domain hording (you own the .com, .net, AND .org for your company???) Of course, this is dependent on having the USDR set up properly, with public input.
Honestly, I think there are certain things that the government can do FAR better than private industry. The DNS system is one of them. I'm tired of being exploited by the for-profit Registrar system, which only gives me MORE spam, BAD service, MORE paperwork, MORE lawsuits, and invades my privacy.
I'd trade the current system for a single gov't registrar in a heartbeat. Even if they doubled the domain fees, and made me wait twice as long to register something. My privacy is worth it, and so is the ease-of-use and efficiencies of a central authority.
For those who don't agree, think about this: ARIN assigns IP address blocks. It works (very well). If the "private" sector was so much better, why aren't we assigning IPs that way?
-Erik
Following is a letter I just sent to Bruce. I'm wondering if this is more a problem with the GPL than Corel; the GPL is not sacred folks, and it may indeed have flaws that need to be fixed. Anyway, we're getting ahead of the deal.
I'm getting tired of the community going off half-cocked. Less than 24 hours after a problem DOES NOT MEAN we've looked at the things from all sides. Have we gotten REAL legal advice? From at least 3 different sources? Are we SURE of what we're doing? I'm getting really suspicious of the "witchhunt" mentality everyone someone screams "GPL violation!!!" Hysteria is bad for us, and I want us to think things through before we jump with both feet into the quicksand....
-Erik
Letter follows:
Bruce,
This is a followup to my thread on /. (found here) about the possibilities that an age restriction might be necessary to uphold the GPL.
On further thought, I was wondering about this:
The GPL requires that in order to use the software, I agree to the term (the contract) that forces me to distribute it to anyone who asks. And I must insure that the code is passed along with the GPL.
Implicit in this is that I must insure that the person I'm passing the code to must uphold (or at least legally agree to uphold) the GPL. If they cannot, or willnot, I cannot pass the code to them, since I would be responsible for breaking my contract.
This, however, is a catch-22 (or paradox) when talking about minors. The GPL requires that I give it to anyone who asks; however, I cannot give it to a minor, since I cannot insure that they abide by the contract (indeed, I have foreknowledge that they CANNOT), which is a further condition of the GPL.
Paradoxes in contract law are EXTREMELY BAD, as it immediately invalidates the contract.
Is this a flaw? Does the GPL need to be modified?
Also, here is another pertinent question: suppose I am restricted from distributing the program due to content it contains. I've looked at sections 7 & 8 of the GPLv2, and it's not clear as to what the ramifications are in this situation. My reading is that any legally required restriction on code makes that code ineligible for coverage by the GPL (in otherwords, the author cannot GPL the program, nor can GPL'd code be included in the program).
Have we got ourselves a serious problem here?
Indeed, you do have a point that I forgot: the copyright on the code remainds, so a minor who gets the code from the FSF can't sell it to someone else for inclusion in their code.
However, provisions in the License are still invalid, since the "sale" was directly to a minor.
You are correct that passing something through a intermediary cannot remove rights such as copyright. However, contract law is NOT copyright, and CAN be removed by selling/transferring the product to a party unable to agree to the contract.
Actually, I just thought of something that is interesting: look at the "Not for public performance" and "Not for rental" agreements on most Video/DVD/audio products. Now, normally, if I buy a DVD, I'm licensed to only use the product in my home. However, if the store sells it to my 13-year-old, legally, the kid should be able to set up a movie theater, and charge admission. He's not violating the copyright of the DVD, he's just not bound to the License restriction. And if he sells the DVD to an adult, well, the adult hasn't agreed to any contract, either, so...
I'd be interested to hear from an IP lawyer about this. Unforatunely (or fortunately), IANAL.
-Erik
OK, remember that using software is NOT the same as buying other forms of intellectual property (such as a book). This is stupid, but it's currently the way things work.
When I get a piece of software, I enter into a contract (the terms of which are in the License) between the entity distributing the software and myself. The contract specifies what I can and cannot do with the software I receive.
Unfortunately, in this country, minors are screwed, as they are unable to enter into legally binding contracts (enless you are an emancipated minor, which means you're effectively an adult).
When Corel restricts their downloads to adults, that's actually GOOD. It means that the adult downloading the software is legally responsible for seeing that the contract (eg License) is followed. The adult is of course allowed to share the software with minors, but it is the ADULT that is responsible for making sure the License is upheld.
This is something the Free Software may have overlooked. Think about this scenario:
Typical 16-year old kid downloads gcc from prep.ai.mit.edu (oops, I mean ftp.gnu.org). Kid reads license, then realizes that he's not bound by it, since he's not of age. FSF didn't bother to check if he was allowed to get the software, so BANG! the license is void, and the 16 year old can do WHATEVER HE WANTS with the code. That includes making it into a proprietary product, or selling it to a company that then incorporates it into their company. And that's all legal, because the distributor (FSF) didn't bother to check to see if the receiver was allowed to enter into a contract.
You don't see this problem in ordinary stuff, because when I buy virtually anything BUT software, I'm actually buying the item, and not entering into some weird use-contract. The laws are completely different for actual transfer of ownership.
Unfortunately, but it may actually be the BEST thing that comes from Corel Linux is that they're being really paranoid about covering all their bases (well, actually, just covering their ass) with this thing.
I'm sorry the world has to be like this, but if we want to play in the big leagues, well, we have to live by all the rules.
-Erik
1. My point on the funding thing was that vouchers aren't required to fix this. People seem to see vouchers as the only method for equitable funding of schools; this is false.
2. My fault. I was assuming you had taken the $8000 from the $300b / number of US students formulae. Sorry.
3. No, I wasn't claiming that under a school voucher system only the rich go to the best schools. I was pointing out that OVER TIME, the inherent advantages of being rich as relates to school performance would lead to the best schools being filled with the best students, the vast majority being rich. Conversely, the worst schools would be filled with the poorest students, which would be overwhelmingly from the poorer sections; thus, you'd end up with complete social stratification, and no hope of improvement withing the voucher system. It would be no better (and probably worse) than the current system.
4. & 5. (see follows):
As another poster here pointed out, if we wanted the "most efficient" system of public schools, vouchers would indeed work. You would end up with a system that looks identical to the college system in the US: the best students get the best schools, and the worst students get the worst schools. You don't get "balanced" schools, you get specialized ones. And massive stratification. That is a horrible idea. For it fails in the fundamental reason for public education:
Everyone is to be given a standard basic education that the society deems necessary for it to have.
Put it another way, Public Education is there to insure that everyone starts out with a reasonably even playing field.
The problem with school vouchers, private, and parochial schools is that they promote the attitude of (pardon the expression) "Fuck you, I got mine". There is no sense of community or societal responsibility. People not involved in something have no stake in whether or not it succeeds. With an issue so fundamental to the success of our country as basic education is, my argument is that it is both UNWISE, and ultimately DESTRUCTIVE to let people "opt out" of the public school system. By promoting the voucher system and private/parochial schools, you let those who have abandon those who have not (I speak in both terms of money and ability). Having a universal, compulsory, single school system, you insure that everyone gets the decent education and that everyone has a stake in making sure that "decent" education is damn good. Sure, you may hold back the top students, but that's where the college system steps in and works so well. And, as I've pointed out before, honestly, the Standard Education isn't about fulfilling everyone's complete potential, it's about insuring that we have a common base for all citizen to work from.
Actually, tenure in the public schools PROTECTS people who have unpopular views. That includes creationism.
Now, you can't teach creationism exclusively, because that doesn't fit with the established curriculum, and you can't use it to advocate a religion (since that crosses the Church/State boundary), but, honestly, there is simply no reason why a biology teacher could not present his or her students with it as an alternate explanation to Evolution. Just the same as you can study the Bible in Literature class - study it as a Scientific theory (or as Literary exposition, in the case of the Bible), and not Religious Dogma, and you're fine.
Tenure has it's downfalls, and teacher's unions are not perfect. However, I'm FAR more mistrustful of School Boards, which happen to be one of the most cravenly pandering organizations I've ever seen. Until the School Board (and local control over the school system) is abolished, I'll keep the Union and Tenure, thank you.
-Erik
See my post further down.
Most areas REQUIRE teachers to get continuing education. So many credit hours every so many years. (My parents have to do about the equivalent of 2 University courses every 5 years). The big problem here is that schools require that these classes be taken ON THE TEACHERS OWN TIME. That means evenings and summer.
How many businesses would get away with requiring an employee to take a class AND work a full day? Don't like it, well, tough, because you'll be fired if you don't, and by the way, did we say that ALL other businesses have the same policy? What, you wouldn't like that? Yeah, I though so.
Also, people seem to be of the opinion that "wire up the school, and presto! Magic Learning!" You need to spend a fair amount of time teaching the teachers how to wisely use the new resource, and even afterwards, remember that this is only a resource, not the Super Magic Teacher Replacement. In many ways, the 'Net is like a library, WITHOUT a card catalog or librarian. Too much information, too disorganized, and most of it of questionable or poor quality.
-Erik
OK, I really hate having to respond to people like this, but this really burns my ass.
First off, the $300b is TOTAL OVER THE ENTIRE US. And, in case you aren't familiar with the statistics, school funding in the US is about as uneven as you can get, primarily due to the fact that most of it comes from local property tax. Of that $300b, maybe $50b or so is evenly distributed. The other $250b is concentrated in the school districts in wealthier neighborhoods. So, no, your Indianapolis Public School is almost certainly NOT getting $8000 per student. I'd guess maybe half that, or less.
Secondly, the major reasons why public schools have gone downhill in the last 20 years has nothing to do with teachers and the schools, and less to do with funding; it's all about society. Schools (and by extension, teachers) no longer simply get to teach knowledge - they are expected to be surrogate families, social workers, psycologists, policemen, and daycare centers. The family and community structure that used to provide this have dropped their responsibilies squarely in the lap of the schools. So, no wonder why they're doing poorly.
As for school vouchers: this is one of the WORST IDEAS to ever come up. Let me tell you why:
Fundamentally, I think there is only one way to really save the US school system: fund them exclusively via income tax, fund all school equally, and REQUIRE all children to attend PUBLIC schools. That's right. From a societal standpoint, private and parochial schools are BAD. Just as many people advocate (and many countries require) univeral military service to create a common ground for all citizens, we should require everyone to attend the same school system. That way, we ALL have a stake in how well it's doing, and ensure that EVERYONE gets a fair start.
-Erik
What I think the NSA is saying is indeed "Give us more money", but one neds to look further than that.
I think the root of the matter is more complex: it's the same as the US Millitary is facing. A job that is much more complex and difficult than before, with the expectation from the civilians that they do it with the same amount of money.
When this happens, there are only 2 solutions: either you give the organization more money to cope with all the additional responsibility they have to take on to satisfy their mission, or you change the mission. It's that simple.
What really needs to happen at the policy maker-level in the US gov't is a hard look at what we really want our National Security-related organizations to do. Hard priorities need to be made, that reflect current (and reasonably anticipated) realities, not the assumptions of 15 or 20 years ago. Then, the organizations need to be told the new mission definitions, and funded accordingly.
This isn't easy. Many organizations have a large institutional inertia, which resists change, and so far there has been little leadership from the policy-makers to do a complete overhaul of US National Security policy and directives to the organizations. It needs to be done; steps are being taken, but they need to be faster and more sweeping.
Hell, I don't have any problem giving the NSA more money, as long as they have a rational mission that reflects current realities, which I'm not so sure they do anymore.
-Erik
OK, I get rather pissed off when people generally blame teachers for the sorry state of affairs in US Education. Both my parents are teachers, and a large number of their friends are, so, while I am considerably biased here, I also have a very big insight on what goes on in a teacher's life, and how this affects the schooling of the typical student.
In the long term, if you want to keep teachers updated, you have to pay for it in increased school taxes. What a better teacher? How about this: Every 4 years, a teacher spends a semester where they teach a half-day, and spend the other half day taking unversity classwork AT THE PUBLIC EXPENSE. PAY for 2 or 3-day seminars where the teachers get TOP-NOTCH instructors from relevant fields to come lecture them on advances in their field of instruction. And, even better, have the School Boards LISTEN TO THE TEACHERS when they tell them what works, and what doesn't. Having school boards (and for that matter, state legislatures) dictate exactly what should/should not be taught in the classroom is STUPID. They don't deal with the kids. They don't have professional degrees in the subject. They don't really get it. What other profession has complete outsiders dictate how they work to them, and yet expects them to do a good job? "Oh, excuse me, Mr. Engineer, but we can't have you design/build that bridge without direction from our committee - oh, and did we tell you that our committe consists of a minister, a librarian, a policeman, two shopkeepers, and a streetsweeper? They're be alot of help, and they're really concerned..."
-Erik, who usualy doesn't get this pissed off...
When people look at the leaked numbers supposing to approximate the budget of NSA (last I saw, the estimate was in the $20billion range) and the number of people (maybe 30,000 or so), everyone seems to assume that they're all codebreaking wizards. This is stupid - it's like assuming that the CIA is full of James Bond people. What people seem to forget is what the money actually goes to, and you'll see why the NSA is having problems keeping up with it's mission:
With all these extra "duties" that people seem to forget about, I doubt that the NSA spends more than $1b on actual codebreaking each year. And, from the people I know that are involved in some of this, I've gleanned something that I think is significant: While I believe that the NSA retains probably a 10-year lead in the mathematics of cryptography, they have now less than 2 years lead in actual hardware Moore's Law has been very hard on the NSA. While they used to be able to count on having not only unheard-of advances in crypto knowledge but much, much faster and more advanced computers, they now no longer have the significantly advanced machinery. Being perhaps only a single interation ahead, rather than 4 or 5, cuts their advantage down by an order of magnitude.
So, you get an organization that faces an explosion of new requirements, heavier demands in it's old field(s), and a decrease in technological advantage over it's opponents, and well, Things Are Not Going Well At The NSA.
Mind you, they're still very sharp, and what they put their mind and resources to, I'm pretty sure will happen; the problem is now, that in order to focus on a problem, they end up neglecting other areas.
Fun, Fun, Fun!
-Erik
Disclaimer: I do not work for the NSA (or, at least, I can't say so...)
...they're missing that critical element: usable application software.
Let's face it, the most viable NCs possible right now are stripped-down Linux/*BSD boxes that act as X-Terminals on steriods. The hardware and the base OS/operating environment (think GNOME/KDE) is there and ready-for-prime-time. However, think who the real end user is and what they want: Stupid User Apps.
That's right. These things go on the desktop of secretaries, marketing droids, and PHBs. People who need really-simple-to-use software that allows them to do they're job in a completely non-technical way.
In other words, they need a good Office Suite, a fully-integrated mailer/calendar/meeting planner, a reasonable draw/paint/photo editor, and random small apps that aren't immediately obvious, but nonetheless important (Quicken, anyone?). There are apps in all the above categories available for Linux (StarOffice, Netscape, GIMP, XPaint, etc.), but let's face it, none of them can really be considered ready-for-prime time. In a year or so for several, but not for awhile for many others.
Also, there are all those nice little specialty programs that people need that aren't available yet. I mentioned Quicken. A good D-P program like PageMaker is also a need. As is something like Visio and MS Project. These are things that the target audience uses on a daily basis, and until 1st-rate programs are available for Linux NCs, the NCs are doomed to fail.
A long step in the right direction would be for Oracle to seriously fund the Blackdown Java project (I mean, to the tune of a dozen developers and a $1m or so). Having a seriously good JVM for Linux would really help - it would stimulate the development of Java-based apps, since the ISVs could count on having both the NC and PC markets to sell to.
The concept is sound. If Oracle really wants it to sell, then they need to either (a) create an evnironment that ISVs will willingly plug the needed holes, or (b) fund development of such work themselves. I don't see either happening, though I could be wrong. Until then, NCs will be a curiousity.
-Erik
I gave it a cursory look over, and yes, the time is read directly from /proc/uptime. OK, so where do these values get set? (and the values in /proc/uptime are in seconds).
So we peek at the kernel source... Lo and Behold, in include/linux/kernel.h we find that uptime is a long int. 64-bits, that is. An even better explanation of the jiffies vs. seconds calculations are in fs/proc/array.c.
The final answer is: uptime is a long integer (2^63, since it seems to be signed), with values in seconds. So, it should wrap around after being up for 2.9e11 years or so ( almost 300 billion years).
I wouldn't worry.
-Erik
If you have the source, all things become transparent...
I used to work at the MIT Media Lab in direct conjunction with several of the pioneers of the field. I've listened to Thad pontificate on the various uses of them for almost 5 years now, so I've got a good idea where you're going to see them:
The big stumbling blocks to wearables right now are the displays (though take a look at the one Thad is wearing in the above picture) and battery life. I expect displays to be solved within 2 years at the outside, after which it's really simply a matter of production. The battery life is a harder issue, but it's being worked on too.
I look at Xybernaut, and think that they are targeting the wrong market first - they're doing consumer applications, which I don't expect to be feasible for 4-6 years; instead, they should be focusing on the specialty and vertical markets, where the need and demand is NOW.
Disclaimer - Thad is a personal friend of mine, and I think his shit is cool. So I might be biased.
-Erik
I do agree with your observations that system componets have NOT kept pace with CPU advances, and indeed, there seems to be wide concensus that the main bottlenecks these days (at least in the x86 world) are off-chip.
That said, I think you are making several confusing suggestions:
I would like to see people concentrate more on holistic system performance, but let's keep everything in perspective....
-Erik
No, this isn't a flame...
What holds my interest in the Athalons isn't the tit-for-tat clockrate match with Intel (I mean, who really cares who owns the fastest CPU this month?). What I'm far more interested in AMD producing is the SMP versions.
To me, the biggest pain-in-the-ass right now is the P3 / Xeon product split. The slot1 architecture limits me to 2 CPUs - if I want more, I have to get Xeons, which are a huge cost uplift. Here's a good example:
A Compaq 1850R and a 6400R are very similar machines in everything but the CPU architecture (yes, there are a couple of other important advantages in the 6400, but not that big). I pay about $4000 for a 1 CPU 1850R, and $1300 for an additional CPU. For a 1 CPU 6400R, it's $8000, plus $1800/CPU.
Now, if AMD can come out with a chipset/motherboard that has 4-8 slots, AND I can stick the "commodity" (ie non-Ultra) Athalons in it, well, then, GoodBye Intel! AMD needs to realize that there is a huge opportunity here at the P3 / Xeon split, a place that they can heavily exploit. All the better, since Intel will NOT be able to remedy the situation, other than lower the cost of Xeons, something they are loath to do.
Having an single architecture that will linearly scale up through at least 8 (and preferably to 12 or so) would be a real advantage to AMD. I would much prefer to see them press ahead with putting into production large SMP-capable chipsets and such than worry about getting the absolute highest megahertz CPU out.
Just in case I'm not totally clear here, what I want is to be able to use the SAME CPU from the low-end machines to the high end ones. Now, I know I'll get better performance by buying the Athalon Ultras (much more L2 cache), but I'd at least like the option of using the base Athalons, rather than be forced to use the more expensive chips, just because the manufacture want me to (that's the reason for the Slot1 vs Slot2 division - it's a pure Intel marketing decision).
-Erik
One of the things I like most about IBM's Open Source moves is the license.
This isn't a "It should be BSD/GPL/MPL" post. I'm not going to discuss which is "better" (ther is no answer). Instead, I think the the IBM license is almmost optimal for a commercial organization that wants to contribute to Open Source.
Why do I say this? Well, it not only is quite friendly to other licenses, it also adresses two critical issues for companies: Patent Licensing and assumed Liability. These are not really well defined in most of the other Open Source licenses. IBM did a good job with it.
I'd really like to see the Open Source community rally around 3 or 4 licenses. Rather than having the huge proliferation that we have now, I think it would be really beneficial to have a couple of licenses, each tailored to a specific group. That is, make a definative statement about the goals each of the 3-4 licenses, and really, really encourage (with a bat, if necessary (wink,wink)) companies to pick one of them, rather than make their own. I think the IBM license is good enough that it should be one of the 3-4 (I'll leave the other choices for you to war over...)
Now, I'd be really happy if IBM created a Open Source highly-tuned VM/java library set....
-Erik
But I HATE these stupid "Reader's Choice", "Editor's Choice", "Best of 19xx", and all those other "awards" that magazines (in particular, but not exclusively) dole out on an annual (or even more frequently) basis.
They always seem to miss several major contenders for the "award", and often are nothing more than a popularity contest. Even if they pretend to be based on merit, it's the opinion of Editors that get the choices in front of you to begin with.
I don't want a popularity poll. I can get that from marketing material. You know, 4-color glossies? I want more, in-depth, substantive reviews of stuff. I want to know how to make stuff work together (something you hardly ever see anyone write about). I want to hear about stuff that I might not otherwise, so I can check it out myself.
I'm not going to trust people I have no idea about as to the relative worth of a product that wins some "award". I'm going to talk to the 2 dozen friends and collegues that actually do the stuff to find out what works.
Leave the "awards" to the Entertainment folks. That's about all they're good for.
-Erik
(feeling a bit cranky and crotchety)
We did alot of neural network work at the Media Lab (using them with HMMs are really popular now in "intelligence" systems).
I can see this as being particularly useful for some applications, like the cellular network example the article had. However, there are several problems with Neural Nets that don't make them a panacea, or a wiz-bang solution to duplicating the human brain.
The last point is the biggest hinderance to neural net usage - we don't really know how to apply it to generalized (or even many specific) problem areas.
This is not to belittle to accomplishment. There are quite a few well-defined areas that neural nets are extremely useful, and we should find more as time progresses and our knowledge increases.
Just don't expect any kind of general intelligence system to be coming soon. It won't.
-Erik
This is admittedly going to be biased, because I'm a full-time SysAdmin and Network Architect, which is probably a bit different than the typical /.-er.
Oh, and as much as everyone likes the bikini girls holding the new Server X2000, please don't. Eye candy is fine, but don't insult my intelligence, and don't pander to me. Also, it's a bit like throwing a glass of water in the face of a man dying of dehydration. :-)
-Erik
Bang!!!!!
;-)
-Erik
I sincerely believe that Thin Clients are the way of the future, especially for businesses. That said, it seems that people are forgetting a couple of things when they impliment them these days...
WinCE, while in and of itself isn't a horrible thing for Thin Clients, depends on Window NT TS, which is one incredibly nasty hack. Personally, I would shoot anyone suggesting we use a NT TS solution.
Linux is great for Thin Clients. Hopefully, the Compaq clients above are well-designed (basically, you should have a sophisticated X-Terminal). The thing here that Compaq and other thin-client makers need to pound on hard is: APPS, APPS, APPS. Being able to run StarOffice is a godsend, but they need to provide alot more to make a Thin Client truly useful.
With the backing of Compaq, I see this as a good thing for thin-clients. Hopefully, we will see alot more software developers produce X-based apps for the community at large.
-Erik