I wouldn't find this surprising at all. I don't see this as temporary by any means, but more of a 'loosing-faith' factor; I'd do the same with my life's prized work as well. I bet from now on, github is the main pickup for latest/stable/greatest kernel releases. I personally hope it doesn't, and perhaps becomes another avenue to get the kernel source.
1) Very good Saturday night entertainment. Not sure what I'd do without "Stupidest Criminals 3"...
2) Very good opportunities to take home a hot chick at the bar. Let all the idiots use the nauseating "Hey Babe, lets better our future children's immune systems.." pickup line and better your opportunities to take home that hot chick at the bar
Next 24 hours puts this fix release on Sunday. I, myself, can't wait to let my Apache source compiles rip upon release.
All jokes aside, what baffles me is even if you're clueless when it comes to Apache webserver security, there's plenty of best practices out there, especially using mod_security with some tuned SecRule's. The mitigation steps Apache provided (using mod_rewrite) almost identically mirror the out-of-the-box SecRule's provided at gotroot.com. This isn't a soapbox plug, I just think that this attack really isn't "new" as I've compensated for it for years on any Apache webserver setup, public or private facing. Might be a good idea for 'whomever' is supporting Apache to spend some time securing it so you don't waste your Sunday evenings.
I think it's cool that someone is investing in a vision to near-space visitation for the common man (well, common man who's got TONS of money and has zero fear of death).
A few things that I just can't help but shake my head:
1) The nice, calm flow of launch-to-landing in the video. It just has that creepy aura of airline emergency landing documentation: all smiles, no fear, no chaos, and dawn your s/oxygen/ether/ mask before helping others!
2) Helium balloons in space is do-able. But it's just doesn't sound or have that captivating 'cool' feel to it. Feels like it's like a mosquito-leap up from the 'Elevator to space' idea.
How does one even afford to open a somewhat baseless lawsuit (e.g. in terms of evidence and he-said-they-said arguments) against one of the biggest companies in the U.S. and not be poor bastard after a handful of months paying ridiculous amounts of hourly lawyer wages? I could care less of the outcome, but as far as his lawyer, it's a big risk if he/she is basing their profit off a 'win' in the courtroom I would think.
Facebook produces the 'original' agreement finally? This is almost as bad as Obama 'finally' producing a legitimate birth certificate. Laughable. Who cares.
Hasn't that always been the case? I can recount dozens of personal examples in undergraduate/graduate (high school was too distant, sorry! But nor did I really take that seriously) where outside the multiple choice or true-and-false realm, there is always that element of human favoritism and non-neutral judgement involved. Certain people would get a lower/higher grade on a paper/research project that had really close ideology, thoughts or facts, that matched the next person (all cheating trolls stay in your cave). More of the educator's time is then spent 'justifying' their grade than the time it took to grade the item to begin with at that point, IMHO.
It would be a very logical feat to have a knowledgeable, computer system be educated enough to look at styles, patterns for topic(s) 'xyz' than it would would be worth just to remove the human judgmental element factor. IBM Watson, I presume?
When Lulzsec started out, their main 'mission', that I could gather, was their shear intolerance of weak web security and exploitation that surrounded it. Exposing pron.com admin/end-user base? Great. Displaying Nintendo's Apache's configs? That's fine. With the latest news front about Lulzsec rants in regards to 'Anonymous' attacking Sega and the 'we-like-dreamcast-so-you-are-going-down' seems quite juvenile, but whatever. It's publicity and it's getting people to take them seriously, no matter if it looks like nothing more than a swinging dong contest on digital playground.
Now they've taken a big step to team up with another group. Nothing wrong with that. I think what's going to cause some stir is not perhaps gaining access to government networks and getting their mits on classified material? It's the release of 'all' of it with zero disregard to national security as a whole. I think that's a real big problem with groups trying to drop in line and be the next 'Wiki-leaks' because it's not the 'uncovering' as much as it is the 'bragging rights'. There's a fine line between whistle-blowing government wrong-doing and nefariously, not to mention recklessly, leaking and or all classified material they get a hold of.
I'm glad that Ms Inebriated got the boot from the theater. It's not really the fact that she was using her phone at all in a public place, it's the fact that she had free time, paid to go have an evening of dining and visual entertainment at a theater and somehow that's not occupying enough. WTF happened to people, their short attention spans and adult ADHD tendencies? Seriously, if you have to have every second of your life occupied by some sort of attention, then every Friday night, stay at home with a bag of microwave popcorn and a shitty FX movie rerun and your phone.
I, myself, agree totally with how Alamo Drafthouse handled this and I hope that every other dine and/or theater place starts stepping up to the plate on this, too.
Every suggestion posted so far mentions making extra backups, using third party software for audit and tracking to adding extra, bureaucratic steps into the mix that will do just that: piss someone off.
I'm a sys-admin my profession and even in the area that I live in, there are places (by word of mouth via networking or friends in the field) that just have a bad reputation when it comes to wanting to be a sys-admin there, which lies almost 100% on management. I can almost guarantee this non-profit organization either has some really idiotic management or simply under-mind the talent and expertise they brought on board (e.g. the admin) to do the job and think they have better solutions. Most of the time, people prefer to work in a smaller shop because you get that flexibility to do outside-the-box work, set things up the way you want and push the limits of your resourcefulness. Ya, the pay/benefits might be lower, but your flexible schedule, stress and environment are probably more than ideal.
Agreed. I just dealt with that very problem last night with a virtual machine under VMware Server. However, the OS, IMHO, should handle device naming transparently and statically enough that you aren't guessing every time your system comes up. But, you can't blame a distro's boot strapping and persistent device naming for that issue either because you introduced it with a virtual hardware abstracted layer that does wonky VM NIC mapping that isn't consistent.
So tell me, when, on a reboot, we cannot make sure that 'eth0' will remain 'eth0' if we have more than one ethernet device? Bullfish to the n-th factor. The boot strapping in/etc/init.d/network has MORE than compensated for this for years in any RedHat-related or spin-off distro I've been working with. For any sort of persistent device naming you can use udev rules (can be a bit over learning overhead so you don't trump rules or get your rules to work the way you want them to) or hack out one of the ifcfg-eth* network device scripts and edit the HWADDR parameter with the MAC address of the ethernet device you want to hard-line to that device name.
To the articles defense, the new naming scheme does make sense, but regardless, it's just that: over engineered and way more complicated than it needs to be. If it isn't broke, don't fix it. And furthermore, don't call something broke when it's not.
IMHO, I think it's probably not a great move to go version-less, because there are some night-and-day differences between HTML preceding HTML5. I can see web 2.0 development and browser test support getting a bit messy going this route. But W3C they W3C said so. Whatever. I'm sure they'll spend much more time waffling over the logo than having any more version number discussions...
Thank you for your deep concern of my privacy and security as it relates to my personal financial conduct on "The Internet" and my memory of passwords. I will forever take a rain check to your failed and train wreck attempt to control the public.
I could almost put money this causing a big problem in the mobile community. Originating from a Chinese mobile app store is one thing from some very tailored application is one thing, but if it's repackaged apps out in the wild for popular (a la pirated, full-version) apps, then it's most definitely going to cripple Android-equipped phone users. Let's be honest, if you can get the app for free, who wouldn't install it? Especially half-wit phone users who have enough technical savvy to go look elsewhere for apps or got that latest 1000-app pack off of Usenet/P2P/Torrent from their buddy.
I'm happy with my 1.5Mbps cable broadband speed, but let's face it, it's a total price gouging tactic to squeeze more money out of the end-user consumer. If I wanted to even upgrade my cable service from 1.5Mbps to 2.5Mbps, it's an easy US $30/month dent for a measly 1Mbps extra bandwidth and for what? So I can download that , depending on size, handfuls of minutes faster than I could before? Even more so, I'll go on the high mark to say it also has a lot to do with what they know you're going to do with that bandwidth and they make you pay for it (a la against net-neutrality). Almost all wired broadband companies in my area are coupled with television access, so you can buy your internet package separately or as part of a bundled set. Why would they want to give you cheap bandwidth so you can drop their cable television service and use NetFlix/Hulu/Vudu/BD-Live, ect.?
TFA article should have been named the 'Worlds ten most calamitous logic cock-ups' instead. Because in the end, malformed, ill-tested or and unforeseen logic compensation(s) caused those issues, not computers themselves.
I work as a federal contractor at a Department of Interior funded datacenter that is actually suppose to be taking on the 'work' from some of the downsized datacenters. Comical bit is, we've known about this for well over a year prior to TFA, and it's a total bean-counter move. The goal is "use less servers, and less operating systems". We still have zero idea what we are getting in, who we're getting it from, what it'll be, ect. To me, we're preparing more for straight P2V virtualization than we at all worried about some desk jockey's 'cloud' buzzword he put in his report.
Regardless of the amount of 'fight-the-man' fame WIkileaks and Assange and Company have drummed up, I think the bigger thing to take away from this story how vulnerable Big Company still is to online DDoS attacks at any given time and for any sort of reason, inflicted or not. You can argue about the traceability and poor track covering tactics of LOIC all day, but it did it's job and did it well. The time and effort to try and even prosecute any of the thousands and thousands of 'whomever's responsible for that source IP would be staggering and it just won't happen. Like many of the/.'s, I side with the notion, "Who cares" and wait for the next front-page new post.
I'm glad to see an organization/company that is independent of 'Big Oil' move on this. You see the 'Big Oil' companies bragging about green energy this and that, but I think they get in on it to control yet another niche market/patents/technology that infringes on their income with the petroleum-based natural resources they pillage now. What has survived so far in this downed economy in the United States? Fuel, oil and cigarettes. I don't see the biggest renewable energy companies in the world changing their ways of currently lining their pockets with dollar bills until it's too late.
On the subject of silica/sand and the Sahara desert: regardless of how desolate or 'deemed useless' a desert is, it's still an eco-system that makes the world go 'round, so hopefully it doesn't get pillaged in the process.
Too many IT stereotypes!
on
Anxiety and IT?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I don't think IT is any more stressful than any other attention-filled, high demand position in the work field, I think what makes it stressful and piles on the anxiety is what everyone else in the world has to deal with any job: co-worker cooperation (or lack-there-of), difficult boss, tight deadlines, piss-poor-planning, busy streaks in industry or retail, demanding work performance, stupid end-users/consumers, ect. I could go on forever.
Almost every position I've applied for has asked "How do you deal with stress?" because it's something that comes along with any job, not just IT. If you don't have a particular outlet (e.g. break time to take a walk, co-worker to vent to, shruggable conscious, squeeze ball with your co-worker's face on it), then you better get one.
But let's face it, a lot of anxiety and stress can be self-inflicted, too. I've been a Systems Administrator by day profession for quite some time now and I couldn't think of a more fluid position to have to constantly get used to. Every year, I see ton's of "new guys" come in and can't handle it because they are cocky, their resume doesn't match their skillset (e.g. LIED) or just don't have common sense. If you know your job, do it well, can multi-task and prioritize without having someone hold your hand, everything else will fall into place.
I think hardware architecture has a lot to do with this, too. Any good embedded engineering focus company can design their hardware and work with it with Android. Why? Because everyone knows the OS capabilities of the Linux kernel and how portable it is, that makes it easy. Woz has a point, but just a small one, Windows was dominant because it worked across the multitude of PC platforms and wasn't tied to specific hardware (al la RISC and Apple) Although Apple did have it's selling points, anything that's more encompassing that doesn't lock a consumer down is going to get tried and, more times than none, chosen over the competitor that doesn't.
Today, however, Apple makes some pretty bad-ass and inferior products that 'wow' you on functionality and usability from a UI perspective. I myself own a few device with iOS on them and their UI experience alone is worth the product. Android OS is just too portable not to use and it's using the Linux kernel; that alone gets you over the barrier and into competition because anyone can slap it on whatever hardware they want with for less reason and stand up a working product.
Maybe I'm just missing the excitement of this, but architecture aside, we know Rubik's cubes have predestined, mathematical (logical) approach to solving them, so really having any computational device (even like a microcontroller) can do that. I'd like to people fine-tune the robotic mechanics around turning and changing the cube, so it can start rivaling human solving speeds. I think that's were the feat would get a lot more interesting than seeing the next xyz-embedded computing device controlling another Lego Mindstorm.
Everything you touch on is certainly feasible and (although, TONS of work) modestly achievable. However, I hate to say if you're the one who pulled out the "Linux can save us all this money" smoking gun fan boi approach, I'd say you better go back and figure out how much it's going to cost your business/company you work for how much time in training, lost productivity, transitions, oversights, and quirks associated with your mass movement to Linux. Just because you're cutting licensing costs, doesn't mean you're going to save ANY money, downtime or productivity.
I suggest you do some real, in-depth planning and perhaps identify more risks, and even go as far as picking the least ranked department in terms of criticality to your business to start with.
You're touching on changing some real core foundations of your company, so best of luck to you and your project plan. Remember, OpenOffice has no Microsoft Office alternative, either.
Slashdot Mirror
I wouldn't find this surprising at all. I don't see this as temporary by any means, but more of a 'loosing-faith' factor; I'd do the same with my life's prized work as well. I bet from now on, github is the main pickup for latest/stable/greatest kernel releases. I personally hope it doesn't, and perhaps becomes another avenue to get the kernel source.
1) Very good Saturday night entertainment. Not sure what I'd do without "Stupidest Criminals 3"...
2) Very good opportunities to take home a hot chick at the bar. Let all the idiots use the nauseating "Hey Babe, lets better our future children's immune systems.." pickup line and better your opportunities to take home that hot chick at the bar
Next 24 hours puts this fix release on Sunday. I, myself, can't wait to let my Apache source compiles rip upon release.
All jokes aside, what baffles me is even if you're clueless when it comes to Apache webserver security, there's plenty of best practices out there, especially using mod_security with some tuned SecRule's. The mitigation steps Apache provided (using mod_rewrite) almost identically mirror the out-of-the-box SecRule's provided at gotroot.com. This isn't a soapbox plug, I just think that this attack really isn't "new" as I've compensated for it for years on any Apache webserver setup, public or private facing. Might be a good idea for 'whomever' is supporting Apache to spend some time securing it so you don't waste your Sunday evenings.
I think it's cool that someone is investing in a vision to near-space visitation for the common man (well, common man who's got TONS of money and has zero fear of death).
A few things that I just can't help but shake my head:
1) The nice, calm flow of launch-to-landing in the video. It just has that creepy aura of airline emergency landing documentation: all smiles, no fear, no chaos, and dawn your s/oxygen/ether/ mask before helping others!
2) Helium balloons in space is do-able. But it's just doesn't sound or have that captivating 'cool' feel to it. Feels like it's like a mosquito-leap up from the 'Elevator to space' idea.
How does one even afford to open a somewhat baseless lawsuit (e.g. in terms of evidence and he-said-they-said arguments) against one of the biggest companies in the U.S. and not be poor bastard after a handful of months paying ridiculous amounts of hourly lawyer wages? I could care less of the outcome, but as far as his lawyer, it's a big risk if he/she is basing their profit off a 'win' in the courtroom I would think.
Facebook produces the 'original' agreement finally? This is almost as bad as Obama 'finally' producing a legitimate birth certificate. Laughable. Who cares.
Hasn't that always been the case? I can recount dozens of personal examples in undergraduate/graduate (high school was too distant, sorry! But nor did I really take that seriously) where outside the multiple choice or true-and-false realm, there is always that element of human favoritism and non-neutral judgement involved. Certain people would get a lower/higher grade on a paper/research project that had really close ideology, thoughts or facts, that matched the next person (all cheating trolls stay in your cave). More of the educator's time is then spent 'justifying' their grade than the time it took to grade the item to begin with at that point, IMHO.
It would be a very logical feat to have a knowledgeable, computer system be educated enough to look at styles, patterns for topic(s) 'xyz' than it would would be worth just to remove the human judgmental element factor. IBM Watson, I presume?
When Lulzsec started out, their main 'mission', that I could gather, was their shear intolerance of weak web security and exploitation that surrounded it. Exposing pron.com admin/end-user base? Great. Displaying Nintendo's Apache's configs? That's fine. With the latest news front about Lulzsec rants in regards to 'Anonymous' attacking Sega and the 'we-like-dreamcast-so-you-are-going-down' seems quite juvenile, but whatever. It's publicity and it's getting people to take them seriously, no matter if it looks like nothing more than a swinging dong contest on digital playground.
Now they've taken a big step to team up with another group. Nothing wrong with that. I think what's going to cause some stir is not perhaps gaining access to government networks and getting their mits on classified material? It's the release of 'all' of it with zero disregard to national security as a whole. I think that's a real big problem with groups trying to drop in line and be the next 'Wiki-leaks' because it's not the 'uncovering' as much as it is the 'bragging rights'. There's a fine line between whistle-blowing government wrong-doing and nefariously, not to mention recklessly, leaking and or all classified material they get a hold of.
I'm glad that Ms Inebriated got the boot from the theater. It's not really the fact that she was using her phone at all in a public place, it's the fact that she had free time, paid to go have an evening of dining and visual entertainment at a theater and somehow that's not occupying enough. WTF happened to people, their short attention spans and adult ADHD tendencies? Seriously, if you have to have every second of your life occupied by some sort of attention, then every Friday night, stay at home with a bag of microwave popcorn and a shitty FX movie rerun and your phone.
I, myself, agree totally with how Alamo Drafthouse handled this and I hope that every other dine and/or theater place starts stepping up to the plate on this, too.
I'm going to get my '3.14' on and bake myself something in a circular tin. Maybe pumpkin or apple! (it gives me a good excuse to, anyways)
Every suggestion posted so far mentions making extra backups, using third party software for audit and tracking to adding extra, bureaucratic steps into the mix that will do just that: piss someone off.
I'm a sys-admin my profession and even in the area that I live in, there are places (by word of mouth via networking or friends in the field) that just have a bad reputation when it comes to wanting to be a sys-admin there, which lies almost 100% on management. I can almost guarantee this non-profit organization either has some really idiotic management or simply under-mind the talent and expertise they brought on board (e.g. the admin) to do the job and think they have better solutions. Most of the time, people prefer to work in a smaller shop because you get that flexibility to do outside-the-box work, set things up the way you want and push the limits of your resourcefulness. Ya, the pay/benefits might be lower, but your flexible schedule, stress and environment are probably more than ideal.
Agreed. I just dealt with that very problem last night with a virtual machine under VMware Server. However, the OS, IMHO, should handle device naming transparently and statically enough that you aren't guessing every time your system comes up. But, you can't blame a distro's boot strapping and persistent device naming for that issue either because you introduced it with a virtual hardware abstracted layer that does wonky VM NIC mapping that isn't consistent.
So tell me, when, on a reboot, we cannot make sure that 'eth0' will remain 'eth0' if we have more than one ethernet device? Bullfish to the n-th factor. The boot strapping in /etc/init.d/network has MORE than compensated for this for years in any RedHat-related or spin-off distro I've been working with. For any sort of persistent device naming you can use udev rules (can be a bit over learning overhead so you don't trump rules or get your rules to work the way you want them to) or hack out one of the ifcfg-eth* network device scripts and edit the HWADDR parameter with the MAC address of the ethernet device you want to hard-line to that device name.
To the articles defense, the new naming scheme does make sense, but regardless, it's just that: over engineered and way more complicated than it needs to be. If it isn't broke, don't fix it. And furthermore, don't call something broke when it's not.
IMHO, I think it's probably not a great move to go version-less, because there are some night-and-day differences between HTML preceding HTML5. I can see web 2.0 development and browser test support getting a bit messy going this route. But W3C they W3C said so. Whatever. I'm sure they'll spend much more time waffling over the logo than having any more version number discussions...
Dear Obama,
Thank you for your deep concern of my privacy and security as it relates to my personal financial conduct on "The Internet" and my memory of passwords. I will forever take a rain check to your failed and train wreck attempt to control the public.
I could almost put money this causing a big problem in the mobile community. Originating from a Chinese mobile app store is one thing from some very tailored application is one thing, but if it's repackaged apps out in the wild for popular (a la pirated, full-version) apps, then it's most definitely going to cripple Android-equipped phone users. Let's be honest, if you can get the app for free, who wouldn't install it? Especially half-wit phone users who have enough technical savvy to go look elsewhere for apps or got that latest 1000-app pack off of Usenet/P2P/Torrent from their buddy.
I'm happy with my 1.5Mbps cable broadband speed, but let's face it, it's a total price gouging tactic to squeeze more money out of the end-user consumer. If I wanted to even upgrade my cable service from 1.5Mbps to 2.5Mbps, it's an easy US $30/month dent for a measly 1Mbps extra bandwidth and for what? So I can download that , depending on size, handfuls of minutes faster than I could before? Even more so, I'll go on the high mark to say it also has a lot to do with what they know you're going to do with that bandwidth and they make you pay for it (a la against net-neutrality). Almost all wired broadband companies in my area are coupled with television access, so you can buy your internet package separately or as part of a bundled set. Why would they want to give you cheap bandwidth so you can drop their cable television service and use NetFlix/Hulu/Vudu/BD-Live, ect.?
TFA article should have been named the 'Worlds ten most calamitous logic cock-ups' instead. Because in the end, malformed, ill-tested or and unforeseen logic compensation(s) caused those issues, not computers themselves.
I work as a federal contractor at a Department of Interior funded datacenter that is actually suppose to be taking on the 'work' from some of the downsized datacenters. Comical bit is, we've known about this for well over a year prior to TFA, and it's a total bean-counter move. The goal is "use less servers, and less operating systems". We still have zero idea what we are getting in, who we're getting it from, what it'll be, ect. To me, we're preparing more for straight P2V virtualization than we at all worried about some desk jockey's 'cloud' buzzword he put in his report.
Regardless of the amount of 'fight-the-man' fame WIkileaks and Assange and Company have drummed up, I think the bigger thing to take away from this story how vulnerable Big Company still is to online DDoS attacks at any given time and for any sort of reason, inflicted or not. You can argue about the traceability and poor track covering tactics of LOIC all day, but it did it's job and did it well. The time and effort to try and even prosecute any of the thousands and thousands of 'whomever's responsible for that source IP would be staggering and it just won't happen. Like many of the /.'s, I side with the notion, "Who cares" and wait for the next front-page new post.
I'm glad to see an organization/company that is independent of 'Big Oil' move on this. You see the 'Big Oil' companies bragging about green energy this and that, but I think they get in on it to control yet another niche market/patents/technology that infringes on their income with the petroleum-based natural resources they pillage now. What has survived so far in this downed economy in the United States? Fuel, oil and cigarettes. I don't see the biggest renewable energy companies in the world changing their ways of currently lining their pockets with dollar bills until it's too late.
On the subject of silica/sand and the Sahara desert: regardless of how desolate or 'deemed useless' a desert is, it's still an eco-system that makes the world go 'round, so hopefully it doesn't get pillaged in the process.
I don't think IT is any more stressful than any other attention-filled, high demand position in the work field, I think what makes it stressful and piles on the anxiety is what everyone else in the world has to deal with any job: co-worker cooperation (or lack-there-of), difficult boss, tight deadlines, piss-poor-planning, busy streaks in industry or retail, demanding work performance, stupid end-users/consumers, ect. I could go on forever.
Almost every position I've applied for has asked "How do you deal with stress?" because it's something that comes along with any job, not just IT. If you don't have a particular outlet (e.g. break time to take a walk, co-worker to vent to, shruggable conscious, squeeze ball with your co-worker's face on it), then you better get one.
But let's face it, a lot of anxiety and stress can be self-inflicted, too. I've been a Systems Administrator by day profession for quite some time now and I couldn't think of a more fluid position to have to constantly get used to. Every year, I see ton's of "new guys" come in and can't handle it because they are cocky, their resume doesn't match their skillset (e.g. LIED) or just don't have common sense. If you know your job, do it well, can multi-task and prioritize without having someone hold your hand, everything else will fall into place.
I think hardware architecture has a lot to do with this, too. Any good embedded engineering focus company can design their hardware and work with it with Android. Why? Because everyone knows the OS capabilities of the Linux kernel and how portable it is, that makes it easy. Woz has a point, but just a small one, Windows was dominant because it worked across the multitude of PC platforms and wasn't tied to specific hardware (al la RISC and Apple) Although Apple did have it's selling points, anything that's more encompassing that doesn't lock a consumer down is going to get tried and, more times than none, chosen over the competitor that doesn't.
Today, however, Apple makes some pretty bad-ass and inferior products that 'wow' you on functionality and usability from a UI perspective. I myself own a few device with iOS on them and their UI experience alone is worth the product. Android OS is just too portable not to use and it's using the Linux kernel; that alone gets you over the barrier and into competition because anyone can slap it on whatever hardware they want with for less reason and stand up a working product.
Maybe I'm just missing the excitement of this, but architecture aside, we know Rubik's cubes have predestined, mathematical (logical) approach to solving them, so really having any computational device (even like a microcontroller) can do that. I'd like to people fine-tune the robotic mechanics around turning and changing the cube, so it can start rivaling human solving speeds. I think that's were the feat would get a lot more interesting than seeing the next xyz-embedded computing device controlling another Lego Mindstorm.
Everything you touch on is certainly feasible and (although, TONS of work) modestly achievable. However, I hate to say if you're the one who pulled out the "Linux can save us all this money" smoking gun fan boi approach, I'd say you better go back and figure out how much it's going to cost your business/company you work for how much time in training, lost productivity, transitions, oversights, and quirks associated with your mass movement to Linux. Just because you're cutting licensing costs, doesn't mean you're going to save ANY money, downtime or productivity.
I suggest you do some real, in-depth planning and perhaps identify more risks, and even go as far as picking the least ranked department in terms of criticality to your business to start with.
You're touching on changing some real core foundations of your company, so best of luck to you and your project plan. Remember, OpenOffice has no Microsoft Office alternative, either.