Not to throw a wet blanket like this, but take a deep breath and ask around before trying to be a government contractor. Unless you are very lucky and clever, you'll get annihilated by it.
OTOH, if you know your way around the Gov't procurement system (the way it really works, not the way the documentation says (sound familiar?) ) it can be a money mine.
The key is to write a nice tight contract saying exactly what you're going to do. The gov't audits the bejeesus out of the basic contract -- there's no way to make money there. If your contact is properly written, every little change has to be paid for -- kaCHING!
As to handling all the blowhard control freaks who think they're in charge, that's what you hire empty suits for.
Unix still has some steam left. Nothing will be able to touch it for at least five years (forever, in Internet time!).
That said, Unix has some major holes. It is definately not the be-all-end-all of OSs. What will replace it? Definately nothing from Microsoft. A replacement will have to be written from the ground up.
Off the top of my head:
1. Security. The access-list based security model is fatally flawed. In order to go to a capability- based security model, the kernel will have to be completely rewritten. Many apps will, too.
2. Multiprocessor handling. The macrokernel model used for Unix sorta- kinda works with multuple processors. A new design would be designed from the ground up for both shared- memory and mesage- passing multiprocessor machines.
3. Configuration management. The current crop of "package managers" is merely making the best of a near- impossible situation. Ideally, you'd just copy a "package" file to your disk and tell the system where to find it and who you want to be able to run it. None of this spewing files all over the system.
4. Dynamic reconfiguration. We need a system that will detect its hardware and run the appropriate code. (Plug & Play done right, in other words.) Current Unix/Linux systems have trouble with floppy disks and CDROMS, let alone esoterica like sound cards.
5. Real-time. I get the impression that the Powers the Be don't know what "real time" means and don't care. We need this for multimedia and general communications processing. Current doctrine is to spec hardware that is *real fast* and then hope for the best.
So who's going to write it? I dunno. Maybe it will be open source. Maybe it'll be something inside a sealed box from Sony. Maybe it'll be a closed-source project from NSA, required for anything touching the US Government.
Geeks can't organize *lunch*, let alone something this large.
To say nothing of getting a million geeks to agree on anything anywhere this large and complex. The phrase "herding cats" comes to mind.
There are already a bunch of nonprofits trying to put this together. They range from simple pro-NASA lobbying organizations to total ga-ga idealists. None of them that I've seen seem to have any idea of what they're up against (hint -- look at the title of this message!)
If we ever do get off this mudball, I suspect that the organization that does it will look a lot more like a mixture Ghengis Khan's hordes and General Motors than it will like something from a libertarian/cyberpunk/ecofreak science fiction novel.
While building O'Neill's space colonies would be very difficult, there are no obvious *technical* show stoppers.
The problem is that we simply have no percieved business, social or political need to do it. Call it a "lack of will", for lack of a better turn.
Big business? They're focused on short-term, low risk profits. Also, they are violently opposed to anything that would challenge their business models.
Small business/nonprofit foundataions? Not enough resources.
Government? No payback at all before the next election, and (at least in the US) crippling turf battles. There's also the possibility of the "colonists" squirming out from under their thumb.
Result: no action.
Whatever entity (nation, corporation, etc) first gets appreciable numbers of people (and the infrastructure to support them)into space will be the ones to replace the USA on the world scene.
--
What's Wrong with This Picture?
on
Living Terrors
·
· Score: 3
Yeah, a bioterror attack would mess things up rather seriously.
Yeah, bioterror weapons (or chem terror weapons, or just trucks full of explosives) are really easy to build.
Yeah, there are a lot of folks out there who profess to hate our guts.
So where are all the attacks? In the US, we've had the World Trade Center, Oklahoma City, and Atlanta Olympics bombings. None of them were particularly competent. None of them produced anywhere the disruption predicted.
Perhaps the usual Hollywood portrayal of terrorists as totally insane, drooling maniacs isn't right?
Perhaps branding anybody who doesn't like McDonalds, Jerry Falwell, or other vital American interests as a "potential terrorist supporter" isn't right?
It's pretty obvious to me that our whole "mental map" of "terrorism" is badly wrong. We can't do anything effective until we figure out what is really going on.
Slashdot Mirror
Not to throw a wet blanket like this, but take a deep breath and ask around before trying to be a government contractor. Unless you are very lucky and clever, you'll get annihilated by it.
OTOH, if you know your way around the Gov't procurement system (the way it really works, not the way the documentation says (sound familiar?) ) it can be a money mine.
The key is to write a nice tight contract saying exactly what you're going to do. The gov't audits the bejeesus out of the basic contract -- there's no way to make money there. If your contact is properly written, every little change has to be paid for -- kaCHING!
As to handling all the blowhard control freaks who think they're in charge, that's what you hire empty suits for.
Unix still has some steam left. Nothing will be able to touch it for at least five years (forever, in Internet time!).
That said, Unix has some major holes. It is definately not the be-all-end-all of OSs. What will replace it? Definately nothing from Microsoft. A replacement will have to be written from the ground up.
Off the top of my head:
1. Security. The access-list based security model is fatally flawed. In order to go to a capability- based security model, the kernel will have to be completely rewritten. Many apps will, too.
2. Multiprocessor handling. The macrokernel model used for Unix sorta- kinda works with multuple processors. A new design would be designed from the ground up for both shared- memory and mesage- passing multiprocessor machines.
3. Configuration management. The current crop of "package managers" is merely making the best of a near- impossible situation. Ideally, you'd just copy a "package" file to your disk and tell the system where to find it and who you want to be able to run it. None of this spewing files all over the system.
4. Dynamic reconfiguration. We need a system that will detect its hardware and run the appropriate code. (Plug & Play done right, in other words.) Current Unix/Linux systems have trouble with floppy disks and CDROMS, let alone esoterica like sound cards.
5. Real-time. I get the impression that the Powers the Be don't know what "real time" means and don't care. We need this for multimedia and general communications processing. Current doctrine is to spec hardware that is *real fast* and then hope for the best.
So who's going to write it? I dunno. Maybe it will be open source. Maybe it'll be something inside a sealed box from Sony. Maybe it'll be a closed-source project from NSA, required for anything touching the US Government.
It'll be interedting to watch.
*snicker*
Geeks can't organize *lunch*, let alone something this large.
To say nothing of getting a million geeks to agree on anything anywhere this large and complex. The phrase "herding cats" comes to mind.
There are already a bunch of nonprofits trying to put this together. They range from simple pro-NASA lobbying organizations to total ga-ga idealists. None of them that I've seen seem to have any idea of what they're up against (hint -- look at the title of this message!)
If we ever do get off this mudball, I suspect that the organization that does it will look a lot more like a mixture Ghengis Khan's hordes and General Motors than it will like something from a libertarian/cyberpunk/ecofreak science fiction novel.
--
While building O'Neill's space colonies would be very difficult, there are no obvious *technical* show stoppers.
The problem is that we simply have no percieved business, social or political need to do it. Call it a "lack of will", for lack of a better turn.
Big business? They're focused on short-term, low risk profits. Also, they are violently opposed to anything that would challenge their business models.
Small business/nonprofit foundataions? Not enough resources.
Government? No payback at all before the next election, and (at least in the US) crippling turf battles. There's also the possibility of the "colonists" squirming out from under their thumb.
Result: no action.
Whatever entity (nation, corporation, etc) first gets appreciable numbers of people (and the infrastructure to support them)into space will be the ones to replace the USA on the world scene.
--
Yeah, a bioterror attack would mess things up rather seriously.
Yeah, bioterror weapons (or chem terror weapons, or just trucks full of explosives) are really easy to build.
Yeah, there are a lot of folks out there who profess to hate our guts.
So where are all the attacks? In the US, we've had the World Trade Center, Oklahoma City, and Atlanta Olympics bombings. None of them were particularly competent. None of them produced anywhere the disruption predicted.
Perhaps the usual Hollywood portrayal of terrorists as totally insane, drooling maniacs isn't right?
Perhaps branding anybody who doesn't like McDonalds, Jerry Falwell, or other vital American interests as a "potential terrorist supporter" isn't right?
It's pretty obvious to me that our whole "mental map" of "terrorism" is badly wrong. We can't do anything effective until we figure out what is really going on.
--