I do some work on securities trading systems, in particular exchange-based derivatives trading. We set up a private trading network using leased lines so we had a good idea where the members were trading from.
However, it was quite clear that some of the members were originating trades from way beyond their connection point. This was a problem because at the time, our derivatives contracts were not valid in the US. The only way we could be certain of this was by visiting the member and counting their trading systems.
Now the exchange has come to the point where they must know and restrict the members access systems, but these can accept orders from anywhere in the world.
For example, you can buy a Bund future (German govt bond) in the US, however you can't but you can't buy a an option on the DAX (German stock exchange index). The exchange now sensibly leaves it to the members as to what product they sell where.
So does the Casino really need to worry? No, they just say that the bets were received from a Nevada address and if they were being forwarded, it is the forwarder who is breaking the interstate gambling laws.
Here we get very close to what the guys in Chicago are doing. I have never been totally clear on the difference between a gamble and a futures/options contract and I work in the industry!!!
Essentially we base all trades on contracts that are valid under civil law. I see no reason why we can't base a derivatives contract on the promise to deliver the answer to a technical problem in the same way as delivering corn, butter or whatever. Of course, it does give some interesting possibilities for insider trading.
Note that gambling on scientific issues is possible in the UK, for example, the success of the original moon landing was one such item. I believe the proof of Fermat's last theorem was another, but it didn't help the research. Your fusion bet would probably run in the UK.
FWIW, Ehrlich was too pessimistic, but wouldn't you consider that there are some hard limitations and whilst many are solvable, the solution takes time. So far we have been able to solve problems before they have got too serious, but it is always possible to get it wrong!
Just what one needs for tuning explosive configurations for compressing lumps of certain metals.
The problem with conventional high-speed cameras is that they need protection gainst blast. If you don't mind losing the camera, you are only limited with electronic optics by the speed that you can get the image to remote storage!
You are on very dodgy grounds here as any kind of active monitoring is actually illegal in Germany without informing the employee. Even then it is a problem.
There is *no* law in Germany that reuqires you to monitor traffic. I have worked for banks and exchanges and have *never* heard of this. Even dealers have private telephone lines that are not taped which makes a nonsense of insider trading regs.
Some US banks like Goldman Sachs do try agressive monitoring in Germany but it isn't very legal and could get thrm in trouble.
What you can do is to rigourously fire-wall and to record all EMail traffic over a week or so. Although you can't look at it until an incident occurs, but that will give you the data for an investigation. You must also inform your employees that data is being recorded in case of an investigation and ideally, they should sign something in addition to their contract of employment.
Remember also to block access to Web Emailers like hotmail otherwise you would see your monitoring being bypassed.
Now why are Toshiba and IBM willing to sell that licence back to Transmeta? The amount coudn't be that much because the company doesn't exactly look overrun with cash (indeed, about -$127M, if I remember that other/. article).
Sorry to be pedantic, but first it is "Klystron" not "Clystron", but more significantly the thingy was almost certainly a "Magnetron". Actually these things run at quite high voltages, so need some care when playing with them.
Ethernet isn't completely open. You have to pay some kind of licence fee to get the hardware MAC. One fee for the manufacturer code and it used to be one per device.
In the old days, when we had field circus in, it was normal practice to try to conserve MAC addresses by moving the PROMs between replacement hardware, and it wasn't because anything needed the MACs.
>> Businesses like dealing with other businesses. When things fuck up (and they do), it's nice to have someone to blame, <<
Sorry to quote but this is a *very* good point. There are too many people in business who are paranoid about fscking up. This has always helped dominant suppliers in the past like IBM then and Microsoft now.
When a high-profile incident occurs (for example a securities exchange failing), there is an immediate pressure to apportion blame. It is a brave peron who then stands up and says: "I chose Open Source". I have even seen a vendor take the blame for a problem caused by client mismanagement - there's serv ice for you!
I disagree that MS Support is worth very much, however I agree that it has a psychological value far in excess of its true worth.
Slowly though, I would rather have source code on 24*7 mission critical operations. In truth, the out-of-hours support on software isn't up to much but if you have source code, you at least have a chance of fixing it yourself.
Oh, an auditors don't like Open SOurce much. It makes reviews a lot more difficult.
Given the policies on Internet monitoring in the UK and the Russian Federation, they should invite tenders from GCHQ and the FSB. I am sure that they are quite knowledgable in these things. Perhaps they will even add a couple of backdoors so they can listen too!
Good point. Cryptonomicon is more a business/war thriller and very good on the subject of how VC works. The technology aspects are more enabling factors.
I agree that both books were very good and I hope we see as much competition in the future.
What happens in the real world now? Well yes we have Java, client-server computing and such but we still have COBOL.
Why?
We can't rewrite everything just because a new technology comes along. As we get more systems, the problem of finding time for rewrites increases. If it works, don't fix it. Vinge's concept of software 'archeology' seems very real even now.
After all, why is the architecture of many modern computers related to a design fubar by Intel many years ago? Why do even some of the most modern chips like the Crusoe end up working with translated x86 code?
The acting on GQ was good and the SFX didn't take over the film as in Matrix. Yes, Matrix was a good film but it didn't really develop the characters.
GQ started rolling at the very first sequence before the convention in the makeup room, with the various characters bitching away. You felt for these characters more than you did for those in the Matrix.
Everything that is being done in SETI assumes modulated RF. What if after a while using radio, other civilisations simply move to something else like quantum coupled whatevers?
If the time that a civilisation uses RF signals is limited then so is it's exposure. This could even be a feature if there are other unfriendly civilisations out there.
Nah, SETI@home is interesting and I have about 430 workunits. There is still a time where a cvilisation is visible in the RF spectrum, even if it isn't the whole time.
The article is tech-lite, well they say that current RAM uses magnetism and this hasn't been true since the days of core.
Overall, I feel that the article is total marketing B.S. ignoring things such as usability and the limits to Moore's law.
Hand input and 3d is already there, they use it for molecular modelling. Designers will love this feature too but I agree with the comment about the lack of keyboards.
I do have my doubts that we will still be using Li-ion batteries in ten years. There are other technologies that should be working well by then that offer better energy density and a higher internal resistance (Li-Ion looses charge quickly).
I'm inclined to agree with your commentator about notebook memory going non-rotating. Spinning a disk of any technology costs power.
From my own point of view, I see three market slots, there will still be a PDA. It is smaller but very personal and a lot more powerful than anything we have now but it will be combined with a mobile telephone and a GPS. For input, we have voice or pen and for output a small flat-panel or a mini HUD on a pair of glasses. Emphasis on low-power and portability.
I still see the notebook. There is always a place for a larger and more detailed display and lots more memory which cn fit in a briefcase. Expect it to look like an A4 pad with keyboard/pen and a 3D mouse. Viewing maybe either through the builtin flat-panel display or a min-HUD.
Actually HUDs are quite interesting technology, if it can follow your pupil. You only need detail where the eye is looking, the rest of the picture can be shown at lower detail.
Expect enough wireless peripherals to be floating around that we are worrying about the prevailing EM field around your body.
In the end, the workstation will remain because there are people who don't want to compromise on speed or expansion capability.
All those guys that Forbes used, was to design a game console.
They are supposed to be doing this on Formula 1, and one reason there is the attempt by the EU to regulate tobacco advertising who are one of the principle sponsors.
All you do is have a chroma-key blue strip and just paint in the ads allowed on a per-market basis.
Sorry, I'm far from a RISC purist, but we have an issue:
1) Functionality costs chip real estate
2) Speed costs chip real-estate
If we start doing the graphics and the sound on the CPU, great for a notebook, but isn't that processor going to perform wose than an equivalent lower functionality chip? I do not object to buying a clever sound card or graphics card should I need one. If I don't, then I can live with something more basic and leave the CPU to do what it does best.
Why compete with peripheral vendors, unless you are really going for the single-chip that does everything market?
The MPAA ruling may not be directly relevent because we have the reverse engineering law in the EU where you can interface to or correct licensed technology.
The trouble is that Im sure that the MPAA will try to prove that the media is sold only for access by a licensed player.
Many years ago they would tell me at school that force = mass * acceleration. Even a few grams with enough velocity is going make a whole lot of mess when something gets in the way.
I thought that kinetic energy weapons were one of things he was pushing at one stage and what is that screwdriver travelling at a relative velocity of 10,000 Km/h?
With a quick overview of the Edgar filings, I get the distinct feeling that the management is not gunning for success.
They are taking quite reasonable salaries, generally if they were hopeful, they would take less income and more stock options. Also, they have borrowed quite large amounts from the company: 5 people or so each took $750K out.
I smell trouble. Crusoe and the Codemorphing engine may be great products, but unless they can sell it and give the buyers some confidence in the continuity, then, uh oh!
Even worse, Cutler was also responsible for RSX-11M, another highly successful operating system for Digital.
Unfortunately, Andy Goldstein, another VMS architect (and the principle file system architect) did not go with Cutler. The two together could have really achieved something.
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However, it was quite clear that some of the members were originating trades from way beyond their connection point. This was a problem because at the time, our derivatives contracts were not valid in the US. The only way we could be certain of this was by visiting the member and counting their trading systems.
Now the exchange has come to the point where they must know and restrict the members access systems, but these can accept orders from anywhere in the world.
For example, you can buy a Bund future (German govt bond) in the US, however you can't but you can't buy a an option on the DAX (German stock exchange index). The exchange now sensibly leaves it to the members as to what product they sell where.
So does the Casino really need to worry? No, they just say that the bets were received from a Nevada address and if they were being forwarded, it is the forwarder who is breaking the interstate gambling laws.
Essentially we base all trades on contracts that are valid under civil law. I see no reason why we can't base a derivatives contract on the promise to deliver the answer to a technical problem in the same way as delivering corn, butter or whatever. Of course, it does give some interesting possibilities for insider trading.
Note that gambling on scientific issues is possible in the UK, for example, the success of the original moon landing was one such item. I believe the proof of Fermat's last theorem was another, but it didn't help the research. Your fusion bet would probably run in the UK.
FWIW, Ehrlich was too pessimistic, but wouldn't you consider that there are some hard limitations and whilst many are solvable, the solution takes time. So far we have been able to solve problems before they have got too serious, but it is always possible to get it wrong!
So whats the problem? It keeps the less numerically challenged from paying so much tax!
The problem with conventional high-speed cameras is that they need protection gainst blast. If you don't mind losing the camera, you are only limited with electronic optics by the speed that you can get the image to remote storage!
As others say, GPS can do X, Y and Z when there are enough sats visible. However, this isn't really accurate enough.
Alternatives are DGPS with a ground-base correction or to have an altimeter based correction.
You are on very dodgy grounds here as any kind of active monitoring is actually illegal in Germany without informing the employee. Even then it is a problem.
There is *no* law in Germany that reuqires you to monitor traffic. I have worked for banks and exchanges and have *never* heard of this. Even dealers have private telephone lines that are not taped which makes a nonsense of insider trading regs.
Some US banks like Goldman Sachs do try agressive monitoring in Germany but it isn't very legal and could get thrm in trouble.
What you can do is to rigourously fire-wall and to record all EMail traffic over a week or so. Although you can't look at it until an incident occurs, but that will give you the data for an investigation. You must also inform your employees that data is being recorded in case of an investigation and ideally, they should sign something in addition to their contract of employment.
Remember also to block access to Web Emailers like hotmail otherwise you would see your monitoring being bypassed.
Duh, my Olympus 3030Z does overs/unders.
Now why are Toshiba and IBM willing to sell that licence back to Transmeta? The amount coudn't be that much because the company doesn't exactly look overrun with cash (indeed, about -$127M, if I remember that other /. article).
Sorry to be pedantic, but first it is "Klystron" not "Clystron", but more significantly the thingy was almost certainly a "Magnetron". Actually these things run at quite high voltages, so need some care when playing with them.
Ethernet isn't completely open. You have to pay some kind of licence fee to get the hardware MAC. One fee for the manufacturer code and it used to be one per device.
In the old days, when we had field circus in, it was normal practice to try to conserve MAC addresses by moving the PROMs between replacement hardware, and it wasn't because anything needed the MACs.
>> Businesses like dealing with other businesses. When things fuck up (and they do), it's nice to have someone to blame, <<
Sorry to quote but this is a *very* good point. There are too many people in business who are paranoid about fscking up. This has always helped dominant suppliers in the past like IBM then and Microsoft now.
When a high-profile incident occurs (for example a securities exchange failing), there is an immediate pressure to apportion blame. It is a brave peron who then stands up and says: "I chose Open Source". I have even seen a vendor take the blame for a problem caused by client mismanagement - there's serv ice for you!
I disagree that MS Support is worth very much, however I agree that it has a psychological value far in excess of its true worth.
Slowly though, I would rather have source code on 24*7 mission critical operations. In truth, the out-of-hours support on software isn't up to much but if you have source code, you at least have a chance of fixing it yourself.
Oh, an auditors don't like Open SOurce much. It makes reviews a lot more difficult.
Given the policies on Internet monitoring in the UK and the Russian Federation, they should invite tenders from GCHQ and the FSB. I am sure that they are quite knowledgable in these things. Perhaps they will even add a couple of backdoors so they can listen too!
Only joking, I think!
Good point. Cryptonomicon is more a business/war thriller and very good on the subject of how VC works. The technology aspects are more enabling factors.
I agree that both books were very good and I hope we see as much competition in the future.
What happens in the real world now? Well yes we have Java, client-server computing and such but we still have COBOL.
Why?
We can't rewrite everything just because a new technology comes along. As we get more systems, the problem of finding time for rewrites increases. If it works, don't fix it. Vinge's concept of software 'archeology' seems very real even now.
After all, why is the architecture of many modern computers related to a design fubar by Intel many years ago? Why do even some of the most modern chips like the Crusoe end up working with translated x86 code?
In a phrase, acting vs. SFX.
The acting on GQ was good and the SFX didn't take over the film as in Matrix. Yes, Matrix was a good film but it didn't really develop the characters.
GQ started rolling at the very first sequence before the convention in the makeup room, with the various characters bitching away. You felt for these characters more than you did for those in the Matrix.
Everything that is being done in SETI assumes modulated RF. What if after a while using radio, other civilisations simply move to something else like quantum coupled whatevers?
If the time that a civilisation uses RF signals is limited then so is it's exposure. This could even be a feature if there are other unfriendly civilisations out there.
Nah, SETI@home is interesting and I have about 430 workunits. There is still a time where a cvilisation is visible in the RF spectrum, even if it isn't the whole time.
The article is tech-lite, well they say that current RAM uses magnetism and this hasn't been true since the days of core.
Overall, I feel that the article is total marketing B.S. ignoring things such as usability and the limits to Moore's law.
Hand input and 3d is already there, they use it for molecular modelling. Designers will love this feature too but I agree with the comment about the lack of keyboards.
I do have my doubts that we will still be using Li-ion batteries in ten years. There are other technologies that should be working well by then that offer better energy density and a higher internal resistance (Li-Ion looses charge quickly).
I'm inclined to agree with your commentator about notebook memory going non-rotating. Spinning a disk of any technology costs power.
From my own point of view, I see three market slots, there will still be a PDA. It is smaller but very personal and a lot more powerful than anything we have now but it will be combined with a mobile telephone and a GPS. For input, we have voice or pen and for output a small flat-panel or a mini HUD on a pair of glasses. Emphasis on low-power and portability.
I still see the notebook. There is always a place for a larger and more detailed display and lots more memory which cn fit in a briefcase. Expect it to look like an A4 pad with keyboard/pen and a 3D mouse. Viewing maybe either through the builtin flat-panel display or a min-HUD.
Actually HUDs are quite interesting technology, if it can follow your pupil. You only need detail where the eye is looking, the rest of the picture can be shown at lower detail.
Expect enough wireless peripherals to be floating around that we are worrying about the prevailing EM field around your body.
In the end, the workstation will remain because there are people who don't want to compromise on speed or expansion capability.
All those guys that Forbes used, was to design a game console.
Not only that, it will send the status of your larder, so that when supplies of a certain processed, tinned meat run low.....
They can send SPAM to you....
Sorry, couldn't resist!
They are supposed to be doing this on Formula 1, and one reason there is the attempt by the EU to regulate tobacco advertising who are one of the principle sponsors.
All you do is have a chroma-key blue strip and just paint in the ads allowed on a per-market basis.
Sorry, I'm far from a RISC purist, but we have an issue:
1) Functionality costs chip real estate
2) Speed costs chip real-estate
If we start doing the graphics and the sound on the CPU, great for a notebook, but isn't that processor going to perform wose than an equivalent lower functionality chip? I do not object to buying a clever sound card or graphics card should I need one. If I don't, then I can live with something more basic and leave the CPU to do what it does best.
Why compete with peripheral vendors, unless you are really going for the single-chip that does everything market?
The MPAA ruling may not be directly relevent because we have the reverse engineering law in the EU where you can interface to or correct licensed technology.
The trouble is that Im sure that the MPAA will try to prove that the media is sold only for access by a licensed player.
The BBC is very good on general science/technology stories. Slashdot will even bring up the recent sci/tech headlines as an option on the front page.
Many years ago they would tell me at school that force = mass * acceleration. Even a few grams with enough velocity is going make a whole lot of mess when something gets in the way.
I thought that kinetic energy weapons were one of things he was pushing at one stage and what is that screwdriver travelling at a relative velocity of 10,000 Km/h?
With a quick overview of the Edgar filings, I get the distinct feeling that the management is not gunning for success.
They are taking quite reasonable salaries, generally if they were hopeful, they would take less income and more stock options. Also, they have borrowed quite large amounts from the company: 5 people or so each took $750K out.
I smell trouble. Crusoe and the Codemorphing engine may be great products, but unless they can sell it and give the buyers some confidence in the continuity, then, uh oh!
Even worse, Cutler was also responsible for RSX-11M, another highly successful operating system for Digital.
Unfortunately, Andy Goldstein, another VMS architect (and the principle file system architect) did not go with Cutler. The two together could have really achieved something.