Political speech is the most sensitive, and the SCOTUS usually gives it the most protection. I suspect any attempt of this kind would rapidly result in their stepping in. I also expect many people would be willing to draw the line here.
These are some comments of mine on the CDA from many years ago:
"Recently my pastor quoted Nelson Mandela's inauguration address in the context of how we should challenge authority and give forgiveness in taking freedom. I was listening and weeping and thinking.
"Nelson Mandela can say that; Ken Saro-Wiwa might have said that; even I have the right to say that; but I question whether he should have said that. He has never experienced the arbitrary power of immoral authority, and does not know what it is like to face the power of the state alone with no certainty of outcome. What it is like to have friends fall away and perhaps be jailed. To come out the other side wondering why you are there and others not. I know I can't ask others to go through that. I spoke this morning with one of the plaintiffs who has joined with the ACLU in challenging this legislation, and the only thing I could say was 'Thank you.'
"One of my other postings discusses the academic 'vow' to speak the truth, not listening to pleas of convenience. Politics is not about truth; it is about power. The first rule of politics is 'punish your enemies' and that is what the CDA is about. Certainly many politicians are squeamish about the innocent blood that may be shed; but many more don't mind, and some even relish it. The First Amendment is the least of their concerns. For academics, it is the greatest of our concerns, because it protects us when we speak the truth. I cannot tell you this is the time, but I will suggest that if your fate is to go down challenging immoral authority, this is as good a place as any."
I'm speaking here as a retired systems architect with experience in large US Government projects. Note, Barry Boehm and Fred Brooks seem to have similar opinions
These projects are typically massive, well beyond the ability of a single person to comprehend, and their requirements have significant volatility, particularly as technology evolves. Experience shows that the initial design is almost never feasible and never efficient, so significant rework is unavoidable. At the same time, the specified development processes are heavyweight with massive tomes of formal requirements, which makes rework extremely expensive. Organizations that can handle that mixture of problems are vanishingly rare.
One of my current interests is coming up with approaches to scaling up agile methods to address large systems. Based on my experience, I think it can be done, but we don't yet understand how.
People in technical jobs tend to be motivated by one of three things--the technology, people, or power. Geeks are in the first category, and unless they've had management training, they will tend to blow it with the people and power people. Even with the technology people, they need to remember to delegate the interesting work to the full-time technology specialists.
I've always tried to facilitate the work of those reporting to me. It seems to be appreciated.
Mason has had an optional alternative to SSN for the student ID number for years. They've also been quite proactive about data protection. The hacking problem has been a concern there since the early 1990s to my knowledge.
I'd recommend putting a fraud alert on your credit data as a matter of course. I moved to the UK to teach, and within six months I had a computer fraud problem to deal with back in the USA. Apparently somebody noticed I was out of the way and decided to take advantage of it. The police and I were able to track down most of the beneficiaries of the fraudulent credit card accounts, but four years later I still have to deal with knock-on effects. It's better to have a little difficulty opening new accounts and not have to deal with other people doing the same thing.
*What* foreign research collaborations? My experience is that it is very difficult to get US money for non-US-based research. (Yes, I'm a US citizen. The UK trains very few inter-disciplinary researchers. The research group I'm in is mostly foreign researchers.)
Actually, yes, but in niche markets. My wife and I have licensed copies of Opera. She runs it on a Windows XP Pro laptop and I run it on a Mac PowerBook. I don't use it much, but I keep it around to help check out my students' web projects. Diane uses it all the time, both because she doesn't need the operating system crashes she used to get with IE and because it's not as vulnerable to malware.
We're doing similar work at the University of Sunderland. See http://www.his.sunderland.ac.uk/. My specialty is 'batbots' - sonar-controlled robots that exhibit sensorimotor integration.
The Home Office is putting all sorts of surveillance measures into place. It's not clear how long UK citizens will tolerate it. Generally speaking, they don't have that instinctive mistrust of government seen in Americans, but that may change.
I run three Macs and maintain a fourth. I also run Windows 98 in a sandbox on two of the Macs and I maintain a second Windows installation that my wife uses. Why do I stick with Apple? 1. style 2. security 3. high hardware reliability 4. high software reliability 5. BSD UNIX
The average ATC is a retired enlisted man or woman. They're trained to react, not to think, and any changes to the user interface make them very nervous. On the other hand, they're very good at what they do.
I'd worked with various Host upgrades during my years of supporting the FAA. The software is hideously old, so we avoided stirring up trouble. We were coming up with a replacement system when I left and took a position as a senior lecturer of computing in the UK. The thing about the UK approach to transportation systems engineering that has struck me is a general unwillingness to look outside the box. I can't get research funding for anything modern.
"Not to be all defensive (I don't work for the jerks), but it isn't that Windows can't handle imbedded punctuation."
I know. It's a 'problem' with the script processing that interfaces to the directory server. I'm happy with it not being fixed. Sure I can't log onto the student machines, but most of them can't log onto my research machine remotely.
This has been a problem for a long time in the military world. Instead of 'password' read 'safe combination'. People who had to manage multiple safes wrote the excess combinations on a sheet that was labelled with the highest classification of any of the safes and was stored in the highest classification safe available. Likewise, I use a password cache on my most secure machine.
By the way, it _is_ possible to come up with strong memorable passwords. Think of a phrase involving numbers and punctuation. Then translate it into a password by using the initials of the words (alternating capitalization), the numbers, and the punctuation. As an example, consider: "Don't forget 9/11/01!" That becomes dF91101! Research indicates the passwords generated by that algorithm are as strong as the randomly generated passwords some systems force unto users.
I also use a network password here at school that Windows can't handle. Basically, the network login script parsing on the machines used by students can't handle imbedded punctuation, but my research machine is OK with it, so my network password is only usable from specific machines in secure areas. It's not perfect, but it reduces the exposure.
I read that book first, and nodded my head. Then I started checking out some of the practices, and discovered that XP is actually pretty good. For example, pair programming seems to be able to produce the same results in about 55% of the time that one programmer would take, -->but with about 40% less software faults--. Not only does it get past the "9 women to produce a full-term baby in one month" problem, but with significant quality improvement. Just don't go overboard.
I saw a working test model back in 1979. My twins also got to climb into a Soyuz capsule. The Soviets set up a space exhibition in Los Angeles, and I got asked to take a careful look. The basic Lunakhod design appeared similar to remote-controlled mine-clearing tanks.
Slashdot Mirror
Use a mnemonic phrase--it will be as strong as a random password and a lot more memorable. See
Political speech is the most sensitive, and the SCOTUS usually gives it the most protection. I suspect any attempt of this kind would rapidly result in their stepping in. I also expect many people would be willing to draw the line here.
These are some comments of mine on the CDA from many years ago:
"Recently my pastor quoted Nelson Mandela's inauguration address in the context of how we should challenge authority and give forgiveness in taking freedom. I was listening and weeping and thinking.
"Nelson Mandela can say that; Ken Saro-Wiwa might have said that; even I have the right to say that; but I question whether he should have said that. He has never experienced the arbitrary power of immoral authority, and does not know what it is like to face the power of the state alone with no certainty of outcome. What it is like to have friends fall away and perhaps be jailed. To come out the other side wondering why you are there and others not. I know I can't ask others to go through that. I spoke this morning with one of the plaintiffs who has joined with the ACLU in challenging this legislation, and the only thing I could say was 'Thank you.'
"One of my other postings discusses the academic 'vow' to speak the truth, not listening to pleas of convenience. Politics is not about truth; it is about power. The first rule of politics is 'punish your enemies' and that is what the CDA is about. Certainly many politicians are squeamish about the innocent blood that may be shed; but many more don't mind, and some even relish it. The First Amendment is the least of their concerns. For academics, it is the greatest of our concerns, because it protects us when we speak the truth. I cannot tell you this is the time, but I will suggest that if your fate is to go down challenging immoral authority, this is as good a place as any."
To clarify:
"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers".
Henry IV's cry of the heart...
Model validation is the key issue--most modelers are weak in that area.
I'm speaking here as a retired systems architect with experience in large US Government projects. Note, Barry Boehm and Fred Brooks seem to have similar opinions
These projects are typically massive, well beyond the ability of a single person to comprehend, and their requirements have significant volatility, particularly as technology evolves. Experience shows that the initial design is almost never feasible and never efficient, so significant rework is unavoidable. At the same time, the specified development processes are heavyweight with massive tomes of formal requirements, which makes rework extremely expensive. Organizations that can handle that mixture of problems are vanishingly rare.
One of my current interests is coming up with approaches to scaling up agile methods to address large systems. Based on my experience, I think it can be done, but we don't yet understand how.
People in technical jobs tend to be motivated by one of three things--the technology, people, or power. Geeks are in the first category, and unless they've had management training, they will tend to blow it with the people and power people. Even with the technology people, they need to remember to delegate the interesting work to the full-time technology specialists.
I've always tried to facilitate the work of those reporting to me. It seems to be appreciated.
Mason has had an optional alternative to SSN for the student ID number for years. They've also been quite proactive about data protection. The hacking problem has been a concern there since the early 1990s to my knowledge.
I'd recommend putting a fraud alert on your credit data as a matter of course. I moved to the UK to teach, and within six months I had a computer fraud problem to deal with back in the USA. Apparently somebody noticed I was out of the way and decided to take advantage of it. The police and I were able to track down most of the beneficiaries of the fraudulent credit card accounts, but four years later I still have to deal with knock-on effects. It's better to have a little difficulty opening new accounts and not have to deal with other people doing the same thing.
*What* foreign research collaborations? My experience is that it is very difficult to get US money for non-US-based research. (Yes, I'm a US citizen. The UK trains very few inter-disciplinary researchers. The research group I'm in is mostly foreign researchers.)
Actually, yes, but in niche markets. My wife and I have licensed copies of Opera. She runs it on a Windows XP Pro laptop and I run it on a Mac PowerBook. I don't use it much, but I keep it around to help check out my students' web projects. Diane uses it all the time, both because she doesn't need the operating system crashes she used to get with IE and because it's not as vulnerable to malware.
An advantage of the Macintosh for a lot of managers is the lack of games. It's not perceived as likely to be used as a toy.
1. Give them to the kids.
2. Use them as a dedicated DVD player.
3. Leave them in a drawer.
(Current count of laptops in the household: 8)
We're doing similar work at the University of Sunderland. See http://www.his.sunderland.ac.uk/. My specialty is 'batbots' - sonar-controlled robots that exhibit sensorimotor integration.
Is low. I couldn't find many artists I wanted, and the songs available for the others were quite limited.
The Home Office is putting all sorts of surveillance measures into place. It's not clear how long UK citizens will tolerate it. Generally speaking, they don't have that instinctive mistrust of government seen in Americans, but that may change.
I run three Macs and maintain a fourth. I also run Windows 98 in a sandbox on two of the Macs and I maintain a second Windows installation that my wife uses. Why do I stick with Apple?
1. style
2. security
3. high hardware reliability
4. high software reliability
5. BSD UNIX
Oh, the Union...
The average ATC is a retired enlisted man or woman. They're trained to react, not to think, and any changes to the user interface make them very nervous. On the other hand, they're very good at what they do.
I'd worked with various Host upgrades during my years of supporting the FAA. The software is hideously old, so we avoided stirring up trouble. We were coming up with a replacement system when I left and took a position as a senior lecturer of computing in the UK. The thing about the UK approach to transportation systems engineering that has struck me is a general unwillingness to look outside the box. I can't get research funding for anything modern.
I am serious. We use Java as our teaching language. I was looking for good examples of advanced O-O design concepts.
I bought the book hoping for material that I could present in an Advanced Object Oriented Design class. I was disappointed.
"Not to be all defensive (I don't work for the jerks), but it isn't that Windows can't handle imbedded punctuation."
I know. It's a 'problem' with the script processing that interfaces to the directory server. I'm happy with it not being fixed. Sure I can't log onto the student machines, but most of them can't log onto my research machine remotely.
This has been a problem for a long time in the military world. Instead of 'password' read 'safe combination'. People who had to manage multiple safes wrote the excess combinations on a sheet that was labelled with the highest classification of any of the safes and was stored in the highest classification safe available. Likewise, I use a password cache on my most secure machine.
By the way, it _is_ possible to come up with strong memorable passwords. Think of a phrase involving numbers and punctuation. Then translate it into a password by using the initials of the words (alternating capitalization), the numbers, and the punctuation. As an example, consider: "Don't forget 9/11/01!" That becomes dF91101! Research indicates the passwords generated by that algorithm are as strong as the randomly generated passwords some systems force unto users.
I also use a network password here at school that Windows can't handle. Basically, the network login script parsing on the machines used by students can't handle imbedded punctuation, but my research machine is OK with it, so my network password is only usable from specific machines in secure areas. It's not perfect, but it reduces the exposure.
I'd have to dig out the references, but it was a recent article by Barry Boehm.
I read that book first, and nodded my head. Then I started checking out some of the practices, and discovered that XP is actually pretty good. For example, pair programming seems to be able to produce the same results in about 55% of the time that one programmer would take, -->but with about 40% less software faults--. Not only does it get past the "9 women to produce a full-term baby in one month" problem, but with significant quality improvement. Just don't go overboard.
I saw a working test model back in 1979. My twins also got to climb into a Soyuz capsule. The Soviets set up a space exhibition in Los Angeles, and I got asked to take a careful look. The basic Lunakhod design appeared similar to remote-controlled mine-clearing tanks.