First, I wouldn't put it past the average university to blame students even if the latest update of the officially proscribed anti-viral software is installed and properly running.
I would not deny the possibility, but I would hope for better at some universities. Still, I have faith that enough of an uproar would result from such an attempt that the pendulum of reason would swing back towards a more accurate assessment of each "event" and its consequences.
Second, damage deposits are usually the property of the person who makes the deposit. So is the interest.
IANAL, and I'd bet that such rules vary between different jurisdictions, i.e. YMMV. Still, I seem to recall that the last time I rented an apartment, I did receive a FIXED rate of interest on my security deposit, and that rate was a couple percent less than the generally available rate for a deposit at my local bank. So, if the university could get, say, 5% (and I admit that is generous) on top of what they paid out to students, then on a $400 deposit for 9 months would give $400 x.05 x 9/12 = $15 per student per class year.
Hmmm, so if the university does not look then they are not responsible? That would be an interesting wrinkle -- much like the culpability for an AOL: if they monitor chat rooms then there is an expectation that ALL transgressions must be caught.
That leads to the question of what liability does the university have when a student's infected computer infects another? Again, IANAL.
Faculty will never agree to anything that may endanger their funding. No way, no how.
Yes, I expected as much, but it would be a nice symbolic act on the part of the faculty to show their intention to protect the university's assets -- that no one is "above the law". Can you imagine the outcry if student PCs were infected because a prof posted a class syllabus on a class web page, the document happened to have been infected by a Microsoft Word virus, and the prof would not have to face the same consequences that a student would were the roles reversed!
Scan my ports, I DoS you. Deal with it. (I don't, but someone would.)
Hmmmm, I sense an escalation brewing: "you DoS a university machine -- you get suspended. Deal with it." "Oh Yeah? Well, I'll just DDoS YOU with some systems around the world -- let's see you deal with THAT." Not pleasant, agreed.
So the question remains, how to lock down neophytes' installs of, say, RedHat with many wide-open ports? As the original article proposed, the university was willing to get a Norton Anti-Virus site license -- what of similar value and protection would they offer for other popular OSs?
A few things to answer, but not a bad idea.
I took a stab at your questions; thanks your constructive feedback!
Back in the day when I was in college (mainframes and dumb terminals), it was required for each student to fund a breakage account. The funds in the account would be refunded to the student upon graduation (transfer, leaving, etc.) MINUS any damages caused by the students (holes in the dorm room walls, broken windows, etc.) In other words, students were held financially accountable for their actions.
In effect, there was something like self-insurance by each student for damages they might cause.
What if a similar approach were taken with student (and faculty) systems? (The following is off the top of my head and likely has some holes in it, but I would hope it would provide a starting point; add or adjust as you see fit.)
Make the anti-virus software readily available.
Install filters on the campus e-mail servers.
Require each student to fund their "computer breakage" account with, say, $US400.
If a virus is traced to a student AND the student was using current virus filters, then NO funds would be deducted from their account.
If the student was NOT using a current filter, deduct, say $US50 per incident (e-mail? event?) from their breakage account.
A student breakage account must not drop below, say, half of the original amount -- additional funds must be provided for the student to "continue their studies" (I'm waving hands a bit here, but whatever physical breakage account policy they have would probably have a similar requirement.)
Invest the computer breakage funds in an interest-bearing account.
Use the interest income to pay for tech support.
Maybe even hire tech-savvy students with an interest in computer security to help with implementation and tech support -- student aid to help with their college expenses and valuable hands-on job skills.
Recognize some students will be computer illiterate and offer, free, tech support to set up and verify virus filters. (Once of prevention / pound of cure.)
Keep a log of when each system had its virus definitions updated. (Hmm, track the MAC address? Not sure how to identify systems.)
Faculty whose systems have a virus that infect other systems would lose some part of their funding. (What is good for the goose is good for the gander.)
Open ports -- not sure about this -- maybe perform periodic port scans for vulnerabilities? But then how do you report, update, etc.?
Allow the use of leftover funds at graduation for "Senior Week" activities -- students have a last hurrah with classmates at no out-of-pocket expense. (I know MY senior week was well worth it!)
Ultimately, nothing is bulletproof, but make the protection readily and easily available, and impose penalties (sticks) on those who choose to not make use of them and provide benefits (carrots) for those who DO use the protection. Some viruses may get through, but the ones you DO catch are that much less to worry about.
Okay, now I'm going to step back and let the/.'ers blow holes in this.:)
An honest question: the CD contains geographic data (e.g. rivers, coastline, etc.) but I saw no mention in the article or web site of the availability of political data (e.g. streets, city, state, country, etc.) Is there a free (beer) source of this info that is EASILY integrated with this CD?
Also, an observation, though it's called "FreeGIS", according to the order form:
http://freegis.org/order.en.html
, it
costs $US25.00 for just the software, $US45.00 if you include the manual (in German). So, this is not free as in "free beer".
The experience of friends who have used TENS and chiropractic electromassage equipment is that this kind of current will leave marks on the skin (and might not work at all) unless you use some fairly messy cream to ensure a good electrical connection.
Any bets on how long it takes before someone decides to fasten the electrodes using rubber cement?;)
Predictive's new "biometric" tool would solve that problem by creating user silhouettes based on the distinct patterns a person makes when using a keyboard, mouse or remote control.
Of course, they'd do well to also keep track of the time of day... as one's motor skills have been known to diminish as one consumes more beer.:)
But seriously, I'd think it would be kind of neat to make a screensaver that only deactivated upon the press of a key, but made, ummm, "interesting" series of mouse movements to spoof this "bionmetric" tool. Choose different settings: impaired, slow 'n precise, 3l33t hax0r!
Send enough bogus data down the pipe and they'll never figure out what is real!
I'm honestly wondering what applications this might have if, instead of transmitting over the "air" it were to be used as a communications protocol over fiber, coax, etc.
Could this be a means to come up with a super high capacity firewire, usb, SCSI, etc.? Multiple "devices" could listen on the same "cable" for the data intended for it.
(Of course, with its intended application for ultra-high resolution of objects through walls (even better than radar), its most likely first profitable application will be for pr0n.)
This stuff really bothers me, but where do you draw the line? What is it about using software to do this, instead of using a really perceptive person, that makes it going too far?
In a word: Honesty A definition I've heard that works well for me is: "The absense of the intention to deceive."
It appears that they are using hidden cameras for their observations. If there's a "really perceptive person" standing there and watching me, it is apparent to me that I am being observed.
Using BlueEyes' hidden cameras is analagous to having a person hidden behind the display watching me.
Can you imagine the reaction if the cameras were plainly visible, pointing right at you, and there was a sign expressly stating that your reactions are being observed, tracked, and stored permanently? (Image: some people scooting quickly past the display while a bunch of rug rats are hamming it up for the cameras!)
Let the market droids sort out THAT data!;^)
Fixing bugs has a cost associated with it (e.g. QA employee's salaries, test beds, test software, time required to perform tests.)
NOT fixing bugs has a cost associated with it (tech support staff, development staff's time and resources required to fix the bugs, testing the fixes, the cost of packaging and shipping fixes, loss of repeat sales, bad press.)
The question for a commercial software vendor, then, is this:
"When do I reach the point that maximizes profits?"
At what point does the "cost" of testing, isolating, and fixing the bugs exceed the potential "costs" of leaving them in. (note: "cost" is not just financial!)
NOTE: How the costs are perceived seems to depend somewhat on the size of the operation and the nature of the product. Here are some examples from my experience:
I spent a couple years testing an OS at a major mainframe manufacturer. The support costs are incredible when you need to ship a developer on-site to isolate, debug, and fix a bug that has the customer losing thousands of dollars per minute.
At the other extreme, I've worked at small startups where there is a very real question of the company's continued viability if they disn't ship something SOON. Hand-to-mouth. Support costs were a lesser concern to the need for income to meet payroll, rent, and utility bills.
And, in another extreme, there was non-comercial software development. Here, the primary "currency" was the perception of the value of the software to the users. Pride-of-work and public acclaim for bulletproof code carried high value. Then again, so was there great value in being The First to release software with a high percieved value of being Innovative and Leading Edge.
I view testing and bug severity/priority/frequency assessments as a means to help management make an informed decision as to when software is ready to ship.
It is their responsibility to know the market, to know the business decisions as to when fixing bugs costs more than leaving them in. It is my job to use the best practices and tools that I know how to help provide them the information they need. In short: their expertise is in the business side; mine (as a QA professional) is in the technical side.
Lastly, 1*1000 = 1000*1; one nuclear bomb can ruin your whole day, but getting bit by a thousand mosquitos can ruin it, too... don't ignore the minor bugs! (Besides, what may appear to be cosmetic bugs can make it incredibly difficult to develop and maintain automated tests that depend on field prompts and error messages!)
What would you do if you could locate and modify the source images used to generate the ads? Make them a uniform color? Change them all to a camoflauge (sp?) pattern? Pr0n?
Seems to me with the collective knowledge and hacking skills out there, it probably wouldn't take too long for someone to circumvent these ads.
Any/.'ers know if this has already been done? Start sharing them around the 'net and who knows -- we might have new "skins" for games? Oh, right. DMCA -- would that apply here?
...so if you have webspace that you can actually program in, it might not be a bad idea to whip up a little wishlist site of your own.
Congratulations on your upcoming wedding!
This sounds like it has all the makings of an open-source project! (Sorry, I have no idea if this particular application exists.) BUT, it struck me it might be interesting to see if
SLASH: The Slashdot Code could be
modified for this kind of an application? You time horizon is terribly short so this might not work for you, but let's take a flight of fancy here and play with the idea for a bit.
I'm thinking you could have different categories and each "article" in the category would identify an item on your list. Imbed links to whatever vendors / sites carried the item. (This lets the linked-to sites host the images and product details, so do you don't have to.)
Discussions could facilitate pairing up between people so they could purchase an item that was too expensive for one person to afford.
One issue I forsee is the need to be able to flag an article in some way to indicate its been purchased, so that "Aunt Sue" can just scan down the articles and see what is still available. Maybe mod the post down to a zero and view at a +2 level? (Watch out for this case, though: person A pulls down an "Article" for a, say, CD burner. person B pulls down the SAME article. Person A flags s/he will get it. But, person B cannot see that in their copy, so they could conceivably also flag that they will get one, too. Then again, that may not be an issue if the item was "cash" <grin>)
As a special bonus, it would make it a heck of a lot easier to identify items and purchasers for sending out thank-you notes!
Overkill? Sure! But once you worked out the kinks in it, it could also make for an interesting business opportunity in setting up a company to web host this for other couples!
Once again, best wishes to you and your soon-to-be mate -- gives hope to this geek that I might also find that special someone!
There is not much detail in your problem statement, so there's much guesswork going on here, so please bear with me.
A key factor, I suspect, is your statement: "We are not programmers, so it is somewhat difficult to evaluate the competence of CS graduates."
The Problem: It strikes me you are running into the classic problem of not understanding what programming can do easily and what is difficult. More than likely, you've been sold a story from some instrument vendor that the XYZZY 2000 can do lots of wonderful things, and you really need it for what you are trying to do, and the best part is that it has a port that allows data aquisition and control from a computer!
Right. (Sarcasm intended.)
Here's a guess at what your situation is:
You've got a feel for the conceptual side of what you want to accomplish in the big picture, and the programming aspect is some vague, nebulous, "black box" where some programmer is supposed to come in and make it all work? But, things take MUCH longer than expected, and does not do what you want it to, and when the programmers try to explain what their difficulties are, it's so arcane (to you) that it sounds like they are just trying to evade their assigned responsibilities.
I've seen this KIND of problem countless times in my 25 years of experience programming, designing, and testing.
Suggestions:
Learn Programming! A couple courses in Algorithms, Data Structures, and Numerical Computing, I think, would give YOU tremendous insight into the very real challenges of programming. Then, you can BEGIN to fairly assess and understand what you are trying to do.
Hire a Seasoned Programming Manager It's one thing to hack together a couple of small little programs to do some ad hoc tasks. It's quite another thing to develop code that has solid error checking, has consistent user interface design, and that is also maintainable, reusable, and extensible. Hire someone who knows the difference and who can act as an interface between what you [think you] WANTt and the realities of what you really NEED.
Design, Design, Design! Planning is Key! Step-wise refinement is Your Friend. This is a classic problem I've encountered where the thought is "We need this ASAP! We don't have time to plan it all out... can't you just do blah, blah, blah for now and we'll get to the rest, later?" Build a SOLID foundation in your design, and CLEARLY IDENTIFY the difficulties. If things are well-understood, the programming is effortless. Continual change requests and edge-case surprises will cost you far more time and energy in the long run than it would take to try and do it right the first time. (This IS difficult; human nature seems to want to look at the things we can do, and to avoid the things that are problematic.) In short, if it's hard to design, it's gonna be hard to code until you DO design it. Recognize and understand that truth and you'll have come a long ways!
Hold Design and Code Reviews! Get involved, be open-minded, learn! Granted, the coding stuff may look like so much gibberish to you at first. I imagine calculus or particle physics did once, too. If you can learn THAT, you can learn some of this, too, if you want to and understand the need for it. Reviews provide a forum for a "meeting of the minds", an opportunity to openly share what challenges have been faced and the efforts employed to manage them. The abstract becomes concrete and there is a gradual growth of mutual understanding of the scientific challenges (so the developers better understand WHAT you are trying to accomplish - what is important and what is not) as well as an understanding of the programming challenges (NP-complete problems, inconsistent data formats, dirty/inconsistent data, bugs in the instrument's programming interface, etc.) Again, a seasoned programming manager should understand these issues and can help guide things along (but, from experience, DO NOT have the programming manager attend the code reviews! Really closes down communications when the guy/gal who has responsibility for hiring, firing, reviews, and promotions is sitting across the table -- problems just go unmentioned for fear of reprisal!)
Lastly, it has been my experience that there is a lot of truth in the adages: "The longest distance between two points is a shortcut."
and "Good. Fast. Cheap. Pick any two, but you cannot have all three at once." (e.g. if you need it Right Now, and it has to be Bulletproof, it's going to cost you a lot.)
I truly wish you well on your efforts and hope that something I've shared here from my own experience has been able to help.
Background: My first computer keyboard was on a teletype, over 25 years ago, and I've used everything from card punches, DEC (Decwriters, VT05, VT50, VT52, VT100), Lear Siegler(sp?) (ADM3a), IBM (3270, 3278), and a bunch of proprietary terminals for a variety of minicomputers, Atari 800, Commodore 64, a bunch of unices (Sun, HP, SGI), and a bunch of PC keyboards, too. So, I have a little bit of experience.:)
NOTE: What I liked best was not always what others preferred, and vice versa. (Though, there were some that were universally disliked.) Keyboard preferences can vary widely. I can certainly identify with the poster's desire for a light touch -- that's my preference, too!
From my experience, the BEST keyboard I've ever used, bar none, was the one that came with an IBM PS2 Model P70. (That was a "portable" PC that weighed 20 pounds and had a gas plasma display and a 386 @ 20 MHz.)
It had a very light touch but, I NEVER wondered if a keypress actually registered. It had: short key-travel, very light pressure, gentle tactile feedback, and was silent, and comfortable! Unfortunately, the keyboard cable went straight into the computer's case with no connectors at all.:(
If I could find a keyboard today that matched the old PS2 P70's keyboard, I'd buy several in a heartbeat! They were that good!
Do any/.'ers know of any keyboard available today that is comparable?
The correct title of the series is The Art of Computer Programming, although Volume I is named Fundamental Algorithms.
Yup. Serves me right for relying on my memory for something I read over 20 years ago!:/
Thanks, too, for the links! Especially for his explanation of why he chose machine language then, and now.
The single biggest impediment to following his examples was that I could not try them out directly. I learn best by DOING. Trying to follow what was provided is one thing. But I seem to learn far more when I can readily experiment and SEE what happens when I try changing different things. I sure hope someone DOES implement an MMIX / NNIX system. Heck, just an emulator that ran on Linux would be a big step in the right direction!
The best aspects of my school's CS department had formerly been its focus on the fundamentals of CS...
Agreed! The languages I learned were helpful, yes, but it's what I learned how to do in those languages that ended up being far more important for me.
Fundamental classes like "Data Structures", "Algorithms" (both the coding of them and being able to assess their performance), and "Assembly" gave me key insights into the CONCEPTS of what I could bring to bear on any given problem.
Macros, subroutines, functions, pointers, queues and stacks and lists, are a means to an end. My success in programming has depended not so much on what FACTS I'd learned (e.g. arcane language syntax) but on how I could organize my thoughts and conceive appropriate levels of abstractions of the problem space.
Slightly OT, but I just remembered Donald Knuth's series of books on the Fundamentals of Computer Programming. There were some truly great things in those books, but I was forever getting distracted by his "MIX" programming language. (And I was reading it well before I could even conceive of writing my own interpreter.) My hangup was that I couldn't type in a program and PLAY WITH IT, to see what it REALLY did. Would that he had written his code in C or some other mainstream language! Do any/.'ers know if Knuth (or anyone else) ever translated his examples into another programming language?
SGI has not decided as yet on the name for the new product line.
Maybe they should have a contest, with a free one to whomever comes up with the best name? Here are my suggestions for an "Origin" box running "Linux":
Penguingin
Linigin
Orinux
Linorgin
Orux
Luxorgin
We could have a lot of fun with this... Any other ideas?
More important than it may seem
on
Chip Chiller
·
· Score: 2
IANACD (I am not a chip designer) but it strikes me that this technology has the opportunity to provide a rapid increase in processor speed. As the article notes, there are localized areas on chips that run hotter than the rest of the chip.
Emperical Method: Thermal imaging of a running chip would point out where the hot spots are. Move a few circuits around, refab using some of these on-chip chip-chillers, repeat.
Theoretical Method: Chip designers surely must know where the power ebbs and flows. I would expect that they could estimate even during the design stage, where the likely hot spots are going to be. Drop in a chip-chiller (or two) and you can design more aggressively than would otherwise have been possible.
Other applications: I don't know if this would pan out, but I would suspect that this technology would also permit the design and development of chips that could handle much higher ambient temperatures. Could be handy in harsh environments (cars, industry, space).
i think the biggest problem with running a remote X desktop to your handheld or cell phone or whatever else would be bandwidth.. it just isn't there for little portable devices.
Not Quite. The article mentions the client uses on the order of 10 MB of memory to cache things. Not too many cell phones have the kind of storage available.
Others have posted good ideas on the HOW of setting up a Beowolf cluster. I'll leave that to those who are better qualified to comment on that facet.
But, what I would advocate, is coming up with some task(s) that are interesting to the students and that would benefit from a cluster.
I can think of none better than cryptography.
Start off with the students solving simple single-letter substitutions, manually. Tedious, time-consuming, boring.
Now make it a competition. Who can solve a cryptogram the quickest? Have some token award for the winner. (Consider each student competing individually, or having the class split up into teams.) I kind of like the team concept... I can just imagine a bunch of teens getting excited and screaming out ideas and answers as they go!
Maybe have each team come up with an encoded message that the other team needs to try and break. Go through a series of, say, 5 or 7 "competitions".
Now you've set up the real-world competition of what cryptography is all about.
NOW, it's time to bring in computers and show how brute-force efforts can help. Basic concepts are to have a program that takes the name of a file containing the cyphertext and a key and spits out a result. For example:
This sends in a key to be used to try and decrypt the message, sends the possible plain text to stdout, pipes it through a spell checker, and then wordcount tells how many misspelled words there were. Granted, this is not terribly great performance-wise, but it has the benefit of being understandable. (I Hope!)
Then lead them to more and more complex cyphers. Shortly, they will discover that brute force on a single box is "not fast enough". Simple, use a faster, single box. (This is a simple way to justify getting a super speedy desktop for your own use each year. <grin>) Finally, you'll all reach a point where it is apparent that one box isn't enough... what if there were a way to get all of the boxes to work together? Hmmmm?
Bingo! THIS is the time to introduce clusters!
Sure, it's going to take some work on your part, but I can think of no better way to facilitate the introduction of so many valuable real-world concepts at the same time:
Statistics - On "average" how long did it take to decode the XYZ cypher?
Security - No longer just a vague concept, they'd get to see what governments do to keep sensitive information secure and hidden from enemies. And what individuals would have to do to protect themselves, too.
Teamwork - Can be FUN if you are excited about what you are doing!
Computers - Practical insights into what they can do easily, and what is difficult.
Okay, I could go on, but I've got errands to run. I hope this gives you some ideas, and I certainly wish you the best on this project. But, and maybe most importantly, HAVE FUN! There's nothing that so hooked me into computing than seeing others ENJOYING what they were doing with them! (And, just think of what YOU could do with a super-computer available at your finger tips!;)
Seems like this would be a great tool for people whose vision is impaired. Let's face it, 800x600 on a 27-inch monitor provides large fonts, and enough space to be useful.
One downside, though. There would not be much space left over if you had one of these on your desk. I mean, really, wouldn't you just HAVE to hook it up to a PSX2, too?;)
do your upgrades on a test box before trying it on your production server
Yes! If you're going to do ANYTHING that is potentially destructive, practice someplace else, first.
what did you do to get your system functioning again?
Restore from backups. People make mistakes, programs get hosed, hardware dies -- prepare for the eventuallity. If I've got programs or data that is important or would take a good chunk of time to re-create, a safe copy has saved my butt many a time. Ideally, you should have daily backups of your system, and with the struggles you are going through now as well as your past experience, a good business case could be made to justify the expense. Also, you could toss in the idea of disaster recovery and off-site backups. One hurricane or earthquake could force your whole company out of business if everything resides in one [computer/site] basket.
Even if the powers that be are so cheap that a dedicated backup system is out of the question, disks are getting pretty cheap these days. I have no idea what platform you are working on or the size of the data files or database you are using. But, for eample, a $100 investment in an extra IDE drive [or even a separate partition on your existing drives] where you could store a gzipped tar of the directory tree[s] in question would come in really handy right about now, and would only take a few minutes' preparation before-hand.
My thoughts, exactly, but let's keep going with it. I can't imagine she's the first artist who wants to do this. So, not only is there likely someone else who has done this before, but there's likely to be a market for others who want to do this, too. Having a web-site to handle the orders provides a simple means for follow-on sales from her concerts, as well as a means for you to process the orders that come in. (There's a really geeky image: processing cd sales at a concert using a lap-top, portable printer, and cell phone dialed in to your web site!)
Gather data: Here are some ideas:
read the music trade magazines,
check with other up-and-coming artists,
check out THEIR web sites,
attend concerts and ask/see what they are doing,
see what other small businesses have done for credit-card processing.
ask around at little mom-and-pop-type stores who have sales more comparable to what you envision (asking around at a Sears or Wal-Mart ain't gonna help)
find out what they did to get set up and see if you can do the same.
Have others do it:If there are already other artists who have found a solution that works for them, and that will work for you, by all means use what works.
Do it for others: If there's a need for this service, and you can REALISTICALLY provide the service for a reasonable price, you may have the makings of a business of your own. From the data you've gathered, you'll have more information about what needs to be done and what it would cost. Use your efforts for her as a prototype and work from there. You decide you might want to pursue this route; if so, and though it may seem tedious and more work than it's worth, I'd suggest making a business plan. The questions and answers will be a guide to clear thinking and better understanding of what you are getting into.
Cautions: It may very well be the case that as much as you'd like to help her, this is an area where it would be best to just say, "No, thanks." Few things have spoiled a good friendship than disputes over money. A business relationship and a personal relationship are two different things. They may very well be compatible, but there's no guarantee. I've declined potential business relationships with friends because the financial risks were likely to spoil the personal relationship. YMMV.
All that said, I wish the best of luck to you on this project, and to her on her aspiring career.
Though the article only mentions that the plugin would resolve the new TLDs, I have to wonder what ELSE the plugin would/could do.
Where/how is the resolution going to be performed? And who will own/maintain/operate/control these resolvers?
Plugin to resolver: Hi! I've got this request from a user. Here's all the stuff I could find out about him, and could you please make a record that he wanted to access this URL? Oh, and by the way, could you also resolve this for me?
Marketers would LOVE this; privacy advocates may not be so thrilled.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for the thoughtful reply!
First, I wouldn't put it past the average university to blame students even if the latest update of the officially proscribed anti-viral software is installed and properly running.
I would not deny the possibility, but I would hope for better at some universities. Still, I have faith that enough of an uproar would result from such an attempt that the pendulum of reason would swing back towards a more accurate assessment of each "event" and its consequences.
Second, damage deposits are usually the property of the person who makes the deposit. So is the interest.
IANAL, and I'd bet that such rules vary between different jurisdictions, i.e. YMMV. Still, I seem to recall that the last time I rented an apartment, I did receive a FIXED rate of interest on my security deposit, and that rate was a couple percent less than the generally available rate for a deposit at my local bank. So, if the university could get, say, 5% (and I admit that is generous) on top of what they paid out to students, then on a $400 deposit for 9 months would give $400 x .05 x 9/12 = $15 per student per class year.
Hmmm, so if the university does not look then they are not responsible? That would be an interesting wrinkle -- much like the culpability for an AOL: if they monitor chat rooms then there is an expectation that ALL transgressions must be caught.
That leads to the question of what liability does the university have when a student's infected computer infects another? Again, IANAL.
Faculty will never agree to anything that may endanger their funding. No way, no how.
Yes, I expected as much, but it would be a nice symbolic act on the part of the faculty to show their intention to protect the university's assets -- that no one is "above the law". Can you imagine the outcry if student PCs were infected because a prof posted a class syllabus on a class web page, the document happened to have been infected by a Microsoft Word virus, and the prof would not have to face the same consequences that a student would were the roles reversed!
Scan my ports, I DoS you. Deal with it. (I don't, but someone would.)
Hmmmm, I sense an escalation brewing: "you DoS a university machine -- you get suspended. Deal with it." "Oh Yeah? Well, I'll just DDoS YOU with some systems around the world -- let's see you deal with THAT." Not pleasant, agreed.
So the question remains, how to lock down neophytes' installs of, say, RedHat with many wide-open ports? As the original article proposed, the university was willing to get a Norton Anti-Virus site license -- what of similar value and protection would they offer for other popular OSs?
A few things to answer, but not a bad idea.
I took a stab at your questions; thanks your constructive feedback!
Back in the day when I was in college (mainframes and dumb terminals), it was required for each student to fund a breakage account. The funds in the account would be refunded to the student upon graduation (transfer, leaving, etc.) MINUS any damages caused by the students (holes in the dorm room walls, broken windows, etc.) In other words, students were held financially accountable for their actions. In effect, there was something like self-insurance by each student for damages they might cause.
What if a similar approach were taken with student (and faculty) systems? (The following is off the top of my head and likely has some holes in it, but I would hope it would provide a starting point; add or adjust as you see fit.)
Ultimately, nothing is bulletproof, but make the protection readily and easily available, and impose penalties (sticks) on those who choose to not make use of them and provide benefits (carrots) for those who DO use the protection. Some viruses may get through, but the ones you DO catch are that much less to worry about.
Okay, now I'm going to step back and let the /.'ers blow holes in this. :)
An honest question: the CD contains geographic data (e.g. rivers, coastline, etc.) but I saw no mention in the article or web site of the availability of political data (e.g. streets, city, state, country, etc.) Is there a free (beer) source of this info that is EASILY integrated with this CD?
Also, an observation, though it's called "FreeGIS", according to the order form: http://freegis.org/order.en.html , it costs $US25.00 for just the software, $US45.00 if you include the manual (in German). So, this is not free as in "free beer".
Here's a link to the company's info on the CL160 airship: http://www.cargolifter.com/2001/content/solution_e /index-160.htm
Additional info on the company and its other products, etc. can be found here: http://www.cargolifter.com/2001/repository/portal_ noscript_e.html. There are even links to a theme park!
The experience of friends who have used TENS and chiropractic electromassage equipment is that this kind of current will leave marks on the skin (and might not work at all) unless you use some fairly messy cream to ensure a good electrical connection.
Any bets on how long it takes before someone decides to fasten the electrodes using rubber cement? ;)
Predictive's new "biometric" tool would solve that problem by creating user silhouettes based on the distinct patterns a person makes when using a keyboard, mouse or remote control.
Of course, they'd do well to also keep track of the time of day... as one's motor skills have been known to diminish as one consumes more beer. :)
But seriously, I'd think it would be kind of neat to make a screensaver that only deactivated upon the press of a key, but made, ummm, "interesting" series of mouse movements to spoof this "bionmetric" tool. Choose different settings: impaired, slow 'n precise, 3l33t hax0r! Send enough bogus data down the pipe and they'll never figure out what is real!
I'm honestly wondering what applications this might have if, instead of transmitting over the "air" it were to be used as a communications protocol over fiber, coax, etc.
Could this be a means to come up with a super high capacity firewire, usb, SCSI, etc.? Multiple "devices" could listen on the same "cable" for the data intended for it.
(Of course, with its intended application for ultra-high resolution of objects through walls (even better than radar), its most likely first profitable application will be for pr0n.)
This stuff really bothers me, but where do you draw the line? What is it about using software to do this, instead of using a really perceptive person, that makes it going too far?
In a word: Honesty A definition I've heard that works well for me is: "The absense of the intention to deceive."
It appears that they are using hidden cameras for their observations. If there's a "really perceptive person" standing there and watching me, it is apparent to me that I am being observed.
Using BlueEyes' hidden cameras is analagous to having a person hidden behind the display watching me.
Can you imagine the reaction if the cameras were plainly visible, pointing right at you, and there was a sign expressly stating that your reactions are being observed, tracked, and stored permanently? (Image: some people scooting quickly past the display while a bunch of rug rats are hamming it up for the cameras!) Let the market droids sort out THAT data! ;^)
Fixing bugs has a cost associated with it (e.g. QA employee's salaries, test beds, test software, time required to perform tests.)
NOT fixing bugs has a cost associated with it (tech support staff, development staff's time and resources required to fix the bugs, testing the fixes, the cost of packaging and shipping fixes, loss of repeat sales, bad press.)
The question for a commercial software vendor, then, is this:
NOTE: How the costs are perceived seems to depend somewhat on the size of the operation and the nature of the product. Here are some examples from my experience:
I view testing and bug severity/priority/frequency assessments as a means to help management make an informed decision as to when software is ready to ship.
It is their responsibility to know the market, to know the business decisions as to when fixing bugs costs more than leaving them in. It is my job to use the best practices and tools that I know how to help provide them the information they need. In short: their expertise is in the business side; mine (as a QA professional) is in the technical side.
Lastly, 1*1000 = 1000*1; one nuclear bomb can ruin your whole day, but getting bit by a thousand mosquitos can ruin it, too... don't ignore the minor bugs! (Besides, what may appear to be cosmetic bugs can make it incredibly difficult to develop and maintain automated tests that depend on field prompts and error messages!)
What would you do if you could locate and modify the source images used to generate the ads? Make them a uniform color? Change them all to a camoflauge (sp?) pattern? Pr0n?
Seems to me with the collective knowledge and hacking skills out there, it probably wouldn't take too long for someone to circumvent these ads.
Any /.'ers know if this has already been done? Start sharing them around the 'net and who knows -- we might have new "skins" for games? Oh, right. DMCA -- would that apply here?
Congratulations on your upcoming wedding!
This sounds like it has all the makings of an open-source project! (Sorry, I have no idea if this particular application exists.) BUT, it struck me it might be interesting to see if SLASH: The Slashdot Code could be modified for this kind of an application? You time horizon is terribly short so this might not work for you, but let's take a flight of fancy here and play with the idea for a bit.
I'm thinking you could have different categories and each "article" in the category would identify an item on your list. Imbed links to whatever vendors / sites carried the item. (This lets the linked-to sites host the images and product details, so do you don't have to.)
Discussions could facilitate pairing up between people so they could purchase an item that was too expensive for one person to afford.
One issue I forsee is the need to be able to flag an article in some way to indicate its been purchased, so that "Aunt Sue" can just scan down the articles and see what is still available. Maybe mod the post down to a zero and view at a +2 level? (Watch out for this case, though: person A pulls down an "Article" for a, say, CD burner. person B pulls down the SAME article. Person A flags s/he will get it. But, person B cannot see that in their copy, so they could conceivably also flag that they will get one, too. Then again, that may not be an issue if the item was "cash" <grin>)
As a special bonus, it would make it a heck of a lot easier to identify items and purchasers for sending out thank-you notes!
Overkill? Sure! But once you worked out the kinks in it, it could also make for an interesting business opportunity in setting up a company to web host this for other couples!
Once again, best wishes to you and your soon-to-be mate -- gives hope to this geek that I might also find that special someone!
There is not much detail in your problem statement, so there's much guesswork going on here, so please bear with me.
A key factor, I suspect, is your statement: "We are not programmers, so it is somewhat difficult to evaluate the competence of CS graduates."
The Problem: It strikes me you are running into the classic problem of not understanding what programming can do easily and what is difficult. More than likely, you've been sold a story from some instrument vendor that the XYZZY 2000 can do lots of wonderful things, and you really need it for what you are trying to do, and the best part is that it has a port that allows data aquisition and control from a computer!
Right. (Sarcasm intended.)
Here's a guess at what your situation is:
I've seen this KIND of problem countless times in my 25 years of experience programming, designing, and testing.Suggestions:
Lastly, it has been my experience that there is a lot of truth in the adages: "The longest distance between two points is a shortcut." and "Good. Fast. Cheap. Pick any two, but you cannot have all three at once." (e.g. if you need it Right Now, and it has to be Bulletproof, it's going to cost you a lot.) I truly wish you well on your efforts and hope that something I've shared here from my own experience has been able to help.
Background: My first computer keyboard was on a teletype, over 25 years ago, and I've used everything from card punches, DEC (Decwriters, VT05, VT50, VT52, VT100), Lear Siegler(sp?) (ADM3a), IBM (3270, 3278), and a bunch of proprietary terminals for a variety of minicomputers, Atari 800, Commodore 64, a bunch of unices (Sun, HP, SGI), and a bunch of PC keyboards, too. So, I have a little bit of experience. :)
NOTE: What I liked best was not always what others preferred, and vice versa. (Though, there were some that were universally disliked.) Keyboard preferences can vary widely. I can certainly identify with the poster's desire for a light touch -- that's my preference, too!
From my experience, the BEST keyboard I've ever used, bar none, was the one that came with an IBM PS2 Model P70. (That was a "portable" PC that weighed 20 pounds and had a gas plasma display and a 386 @ 20 MHz.)
It had a very light touch but, I NEVER wondered if a keypress actually registered. It had: short key-travel, very light pressure, gentle tactile feedback, and was silent, and comfortable! Unfortunately, the keyboard cable went straight into the computer's case with no connectors at all. :(
If I could find a keyboard today that matched the old PS2 P70's keyboard, I'd buy several in a heartbeat! They were that good! Do any /.'ers know of any keyboard available today that is comparable?
For those who may be interested in some additional technical details, please check out the AMANDA home page at: http://amanda.berkeley.edu/amanda/amanda.html.
It provides info on the history of the project (AMANDA-A, -B, and -II) as well as lots of links to many other resources and references.
The correct title of the series is The Art of Computer Programming, although Volume I is named Fundamental Algorithms.
Yup. Serves me right for relying on my memory for something I read over 20 years ago! :/
Thanks, too, for the links! Especially for his explanation of why he chose machine language then, and now.
The single biggest impediment to following his examples was that I could not try them out directly. I learn best by DOING. Trying to follow what was provided is one thing. But I seem to learn far more when I can readily experiment and SEE what happens when I try changing different things. I sure hope someone DOES implement an MMIX / NNIX system. Heck, just an emulator that ran on Linux would be a big step in the right direction!
The best aspects of my school's CS department had formerly been its focus on the fundamentals of CS ...
Agreed! The languages I learned were helpful, yes, but it's what I learned how to do in those languages that ended up being far more important for me.
Fundamental classes like "Data Structures", "Algorithms" (both the coding of them and being able to assess their performance), and "Assembly" gave me key insights into the CONCEPTS of what I could bring to bear on any given problem.
Macros, subroutines, functions, pointers, queues and stacks and lists, are a means to an end. My success in programming has depended not so much on what FACTS I'd learned (e.g. arcane language syntax) but on how I could organize my thoughts and conceive appropriate levels of abstractions of the problem space.
Slightly OT, but I just remembered Donald Knuth's series of books on the Fundamentals of Computer Programming. There were some truly great things in those books, but I was forever getting distracted by his "MIX" programming language. (And I was reading it well before I could even conceive of writing my own interpreter.) My hangup was that I couldn't type in a program and PLAY WITH IT, to see what it REALLY did. Would that he had written his code in C or some other mainstream language! Do any /.'ers know if Knuth (or anyone else) ever translated his examples into another programming language?
SGI has not decided as yet on the name for the new product line.
Maybe they should have a contest, with a free one to whomever comes up with the best name? Here are my suggestions for an "Origin" box running "Linux":
We could have a lot of fun with this... Any other ideas?
IANACD (I am not a chip designer) but it strikes me that this technology has the opportunity to provide a rapid increase in processor speed. As the article notes, there are localized areas on chips that run hotter than the rest of the chip.
Emperical Method: Thermal imaging of a running chip would point out where the hot spots are. Move a few circuits around, refab using some of these on-chip chip-chillers, repeat.
Theoretical Method: Chip designers surely must know where the power ebbs and flows. I would expect that they could estimate even during the design stage, where the likely hot spots are going to be. Drop in a chip-chiller (or two) and you can design more aggressively than would otherwise have been possible.
Other applications: I don't know if this would pan out, but I would suspect that this technology would also permit the design and development of chips that could handle much higher ambient temperatures. Could be handy in harsh environments (cars, industry, space).
i think the biggest problem with running a remote X desktop to your handheld or cell phone or whatever else would be bandwidth.. it just isn't there for little portable devices.
Not Quite. The article mentions the client uses on the order of 10 MB of memory to cache things. Not too many cell phones have the kind of storage available.
Others have posted good ideas on the HOW of setting up a Beowolf cluster. I'll leave that to those who are better qualified to comment on that facet.
But, what I would advocate, is coming up with some task(s) that are interesting to the students and that would benefit from a cluster. I can think of none better than cryptography.
Start off with the students solving simple single-letter substitutions, manually. Tedious, time-consuming, boring.
Now make it a competition. Who can solve a cryptogram the quickest? Have some token award for the winner. (Consider each student competing individually, or having the class split up into teams.) I kind of like the team concept... I can just imagine a bunch of teens getting excited and screaming out ideas and answers as they go!
Maybe have each team come up with an encoded message that the other team needs to try and break. Go through a series of, say, 5 or 7 "competitions". Now you've set up the real-world competition of what cryptography is all about.
NOW, it's time to bring in computers and show how brute-force efforts can help. Basic concepts are to have a program that takes the name of a file containing the cyphertext and a key and spits out a result. For example:
This sends in a key to be used to try and decrypt the message, sends the possible plain text to stdout, pipes it through a spell checker, and then wordcount tells how many misspelled words there were. Granted, this is not terribly great performance-wise, but it has the benefit of being understandable. (I Hope!)
Then lead them to more and more complex cyphers. Shortly, they will discover that brute force on a single box is "not fast enough". Simple, use a faster, single box. (This is a simple way to justify getting a super speedy desktop for your own use each year. <grin>) Finally, you'll all reach a point where it is apparent that one box isn't enough... what if there were a way to get all of the boxes to work together? Hmmmm? Bingo! THIS is the time to introduce clusters!
Sure, it's going to take some work on your part, but I can think of no better way to facilitate the introduction of so many valuable real-world concepts at the same time:
Okay, I could go on, but I've got errands to run. I hope this gives you some ideas, and I certainly wish you the best on this project. But, and maybe most importantly, HAVE FUN! There's nothing that so hooked me into computing than seeing others ENJOYING what they were doing with them! (And, just think of what YOU could do with a super-computer available at your finger tips! ;)
Seems like this would be a great tool for people whose vision is impaired. Let's face it, 800x600 on a 27-inch monitor provides large fonts, and enough space to be useful.
One downside, though. There would not be much space left over if you had one of these on your desk. I mean, really, wouldn't you just HAVE to hook it up to a PSX2, too? ;)
do your upgrades on a test box before trying it on your production server
Yes! If you're going to do ANYTHING that is potentially destructive, practice someplace else, first.
what did you do to get your system functioning again?
Restore from backups. People make mistakes, programs get hosed, hardware dies -- prepare for the eventuallity. If I've got programs or data that is important or would take a good chunk of time to re-create, a safe copy has saved my butt many a time. Ideally, you should have daily backups of your system, and with the struggles you are going through now as well as your past experience, a good business case could be made to justify the expense. Also, you could toss in the idea of disaster recovery and off-site backups. One hurricane or earthquake could force your whole company out of business if everything resides in one [computer/site] basket.
Even if the powers that be are so cheap that a dedicated backup system is out of the question, disks are getting pretty cheap these days. I have no idea what platform you are working on or the size of the data files or database you are using. But, for eample, a $100 investment in an extra IDE drive [or even a separate partition on your existing drives] where you could store a gzipped tar of the directory tree[s] in question would come in really handy right about now, and would only take a few minutes' preparation before-hand.
You could even create a Yahoo!'s store.
My thoughts, exactly, but let's keep going with it. I can't imagine she's the first artist who wants to do this. So, not only is there likely someone else who has done this before, but there's likely to be a market for others who want to do this, too. Having a web-site to handle the orders provides a simple means for follow-on sales from her concerts, as well as a means for you to process the orders that come in. (There's a really geeky image: processing cd sales at a concert using a lap-top, portable printer, and cell phone dialed in to your web site!)
Gather data: Here are some ideas:
Have others do it:If there are already other artists who have found a solution that works for them, and that will work for you, by all means use what works.
Do it for others: If there's a need for this service, and you can REALISTICALLY provide the service for a reasonable price, you may have the makings of a business of your own. From the data you've gathered, you'll have more information about what needs to be done and what it would cost. Use your efforts for her as a prototype and work from there. You decide you might want to pursue this route; if so, and though it may seem tedious and more work than it's worth, I'd suggest making a business plan. The questions and answers will be a guide to clear thinking and better understanding of what you are getting into.
Cautions: It may very well be the case that as much as you'd like to help her, this is an area where it would be best to just say, "No, thanks." Few things have spoiled a good friendship than disputes over money. A business relationship and a personal relationship are two different things. They may very well be compatible, but there's no guarantee. I've declined potential business relationships with friends because the financial risks were likely to spoil the personal relationship. YMMV.
All that said, I wish the best of luck to you on this project, and to her on her aspiring career.
Tevatron? How did they get electronics into my sandles? ;) Gives new meaning to going for a power walk, too!
(cf http://www.Teva.com)
Though the article only mentions that the plugin would resolve the new TLDs, I have to wonder what ELSE the plugin would/could do.
Where/how is the resolution going to be performed? And who will own/maintain/operate/control these resolvers?
Plugin to resolver: Hi! I've got this request from a user. Here's all the stuff I could find out about him, and could you please make a record that he wanted to access this URL? Oh, and by the way, could you also resolve this for me?
Marketers would LOVE this; privacy advocates may not be so thrilled.