Is `my data base cannot export' a "sound legal basis" for refusing (until after the election) this FOI request? Would the DOJ accept this excuse from a company under investigation? (I didn't think so.) There are some very selective blinders in use by the poster (and probably lots of other people).
If SCO can do it (i.e. provide a hard copy to IBM), then the DOJ certainly can. Just replace Ashcroft with McBride. The law could not be in any worse hands than it is now and we would actually get a printout.
"Other examples: First powered flight: France (NOT Wright Brothers)"
NPR had a special on the Wright Brothers on the 100th anniversary of their flight. As I recall, claims from Europe (France) to the first powered flight arose because the Wright brothers insisted on secrecy and did not fly "in public" until several years after their first flight. (I believe the conclusion was that the Wright brothers were first. They also tried to "own" flying in the US and filed a number of lawsuits against other US aircraft builders; reminds me of some companies' behaviors now.)
Other posts deal with the question of whether Colossus was actually a computer in the modern sense (e.g. stored programs).
If you look at Goldstine's publication list on
MathSciNet (usually only available on University netwoks which subscribe), you find a strong collaboration with von Neumann and early uses of computers to solve scientific problems. For example:
"Preliminary Discussion of the Logical Design of an Electronic Computing Instrument" by Arthur W. Burks, Herman H. Goldstine, and John von Neumann,
2d ed. Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, N. J., 1947.
"Planning and Coding of Problems for an Electronic Computing Instrument" by Herman H. Goldstine and John von Neumann, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, N. J., 1947.
"Numerical inverting of matrices of high order" by Herman H. Goldstine and John von Neumann, Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 53, (1947). 1021--1099.
"Calculation of plane cavity flows past curved obstacles" by G. Birkhoff, H. H. Goldstine and E. H. Zarantonello, Univ. e Politec. Torino. Rend. Sem. Mat. 13 (1954), 205--224 (with a review by David Gilbarg).
"Blast wave calculation" by Herman H. Goldstine and John von Neumann,
Comm. Pure Appl. Math. 8 (1955), 327--353.
(I mention Gilbarg's review in part because I had an office (approximately) across from his at Stanford for a semester in 1991.) Gilbarg's review begins
"This paper describes the first systematic calculations ever carried out on cavity and jet flows past curved obstacles, comprising altogether fifty symmetric plane flows past convex and concave bodies, under several different conditions of streamline detachment. The computations were performed on a high speed digital computer, using an improved version of a scheme previously described by Birkhoff, Young, and Zarantonello... "
"skills" beyond "new ways to insult users without them noticing".
I think the crew at User Friendly (except Stef) would be insulted at your tone; these are important skills.
This is kind of cute (and weird); I love "Link of the Day."
I know part of the answer to the following question but not the complete answer.
How are recent graduates of
Gene Golub'sprogram doing?
If anyone should be able to get industry jobs, they should. The little I know is the getting interviews is not too hard but getting jobs may be a little harder right now. Anyone have any recent information?
"Once you see things from the owner's side..."
I wonder who is the owner in some of these cases. Is it the person or group who started the business? Is it the venture capitalists who put money into it? Is it share holders? Or does management pay any attention to the "owner's" point of view?
"One last rule of thumb: Never change jobs for less that a 10% pay increase."
If you were working at Caldera when McBride arrived and you had a chance to move (even with a pay cut), I think this might have been the smart move. How will any programmer who stayed with SCO live this down? (I know; you had to feed the wife and kids, make payments on the credit cards and house, etc. Still, you will be marked for life.)
Re:He Might Be Passe, But What He Is Doing Isn't
on
Wired on McBride
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Is it not the case the MS Windows contains (or contained) code from BSD or Linux (e.g. TCP/IP stack), possibly without acknowledgement of the Regents of the University of California if BSD is being used? (I could be wrong about this.)
My bank (Bank of America) does not let me log on at all. I use Konqueror with
Konqueror's Browser Identification "Site Specific Information" set to Internet Explorer. The "KDE vs IE" issue does not seem to be the problem. When you call BofA, you get "hours" of prerecorder/touch tone crap. I have just about given up on BofA. (For example, most banks do not care about your state of residence when you opened an account. BofA is really screwed up.)
Just my 2 cents.
I phrased my post poorly. I should have started with "I cannot compare MS and FOSS since I only use Linux."
One way to judge the ease of use of different systems is for individuals to discuss their experiences. I was trying to do this by presenting a recent experience of mine in which a problem arose and was solved; I learned more about xfig and will be able make better use of it in the future. I suspect that the issue with "color[0,0,0]" might be resolved by changing a "config" file (.Xefaults ??).
If I were using MS, would it be as easy for me to learn about the applications I use? Would I run any risk if I publish a figure created using software which is not FOSS in a professional journal?
This is an interesting post. Since most companies like publicity, I wonder if the poster could give us the company name and examples of the web applications. We can then see how much better are the applications developed using "ASP.NET technology" and why "we continue to see gains on a daily basis."
I cannot respond to this comment since I only use Linux.
Yesterday I was using xfig to create a figure for a (math) paper I intend to submit (to the Pacific Journal of Math). I wanted to use LaTeX labels for a figure and this was not working. I asked a colleague and he suggested I look at
this page. I then had a little problem; "color[0,0,0]" was placed in front of each label (not certain why). I looked at the "figure.pstex_t" file and removed by hand the phrase color[0,0,0] from each label. Everything worked fine after that.
So, how much trouble was this? Anyone (or any mathematician) using LaTeX directly would have no trouble removing "color[0,0,0]" from the very small file figure.pstex_t. The only other thing required is to use the "special" tag for the label and the web page above explains this nicely. In my opinion, using LaTeX labels in xfig is very easy and difficulitites are easily overcome. Since someone directed me to the UK page above, I wondered how difficult it would be to find a good "info/man" page. In Konqueror, I typed "gg: xfig label latex" and got about 2720 links. The UK link above was number 7 on this list. (I did not check to see if the others also solve the problem but they all look reasonable.) Since google is the "standard" search engine, it seems to me that finding the information I needed is fairly quick and easy.
I do not know how the M$ "world" deals with this type of issue. I now know a little more about xfig; since I use xfig or other FOSS software to create graphical content for my research/publications, I am happy that this problem came up (and was easily resolved).
I strongly support this statement. I do not trust MS and will not use their products (OK, infrequent games of TA or TAK require Windows) but many people do use them; making MS products more secure is good for all of us.
Just imagine if he had a real CS PhD instead of a Math PhD... or not.
Seriously, TeX is great (as is LaTeX). I happen to think Knuth can do anything. (OK, he needs to work on the "walking on water" bit.)
Many faculty do work very hard. I am trying to finish two papers before Tuesday (when I leave for a conference) so I can submit them to a journal editor (at Stanford); one is done but the other will be a week or two late so my coauthor in Australia can look over it. I have been spending about 18 hours per day working on these papers and I have not even written up the conference talk I will be giving in CA next week. Of course, I do not have a NSF grant right now and I am on summer vacation. (This is a normal vacation for me but I would prefer to do this stuff in Europe.)
There are some faculty who are lazy; they teach poorly and do not conduct research. I do not know what you do about them but I suspect that any "solution" would do much more harm than good.
We are starting to implement a SAP "solution" for financial aid, payroll, employee records, etc. (Wish us luck.) Before beginning this, the administration looked at current practice. It took about 70 steps to hire a new employee. Paperwork was processed locally, sent to the state capitol for signatures, returned for more signatures, etc. I think they reduced some of this (but I am not certain). Item 1) ("business reengineering") really can necessary.
Here the CS and Math departments have their own networks. I have no idea about ECE (Elec. & Comp. Eng.) except that the engineering departments are a strong source of campus worms, viri (sp?), spam, etc. The IT office is a joke; the IT head hates linux (although the VP who oversees IT is warming to linux).
Just as an aside, do you remember who was the Provost at Stanford from 1993-99? The same person who has done such a good job of protecting us from terrorists. The quality of her work speaks for itself.
One problem is that it "is smart business to save money" over the long run but businesses (or CEOs, who get bonus checks and stock options) try to save money over the short run. As one example, consider selling harmful products (e.g. asbestos, tobacco) which will make (or made) profits in the short run but will lose money in the long run. As another example, consider DEC. Imagine consumer priced Alphas being widely sold to gamers and others (the NSA cannot be all wrong) in 1999 or 2000. Imagine Cormack porting games to Alphas. Was it in the best business interest to sell DEC to Compaq? (And what great DEC ideas is HP sitting on? IA64 is certainly a better 64-bit architecture:-( )
There are certain communities with many aircraft plants which have a highly trained aerospace workforce developed over decades. People begin working at a parts supplier and the best of these get hired by the lowest level (big) factory. The best of these get hired by the next best factory (better wages, etc.) At the end of the process, Boeing hires the best of the best in this community. (OK, you know where I live now.)
This is not to say that the managers at Boeing are the best of the best; I do not know one way or the other but I have heard stories of "Boeing politics" and it is not pretty. However, aircraft companies move to this community because of the high quality of the workforce. There is no place in China (or Europe - manufacturing jobs which require very high quality are being moved from UK, etc. to this community) which compares. When the safety of your plane is in question, I hope the best products are used.
One problem with "offshoring" jobs is that price rather than quality is the primary consideration. I believe I read somewhere that in order for Boeing to sell planes to China, a plant was created in China to created wiring harnesses (and other wiring products). When time came to build the planes for China, the Chinese airline (or government) was very upset to learn that the wiring products (which are critical if you do not want the plane to crash and require very high quality work) built in China would be used on their planes. I believe they complained a great deal and tried to get the products made in a U.S. Boeing plant because the quality (and safety) of these particular U.S. products are the highest in the world. (I think there is one Boeing plant in the U.S. which includes a specialization in wiring issues and tests show its produces products which are much better than anything from Airbus or anyone else.)
"What makes him a kook?"
I did not mean this is a mean or unkind way. I like your term "ecentric" but you have realize that he has a big ego and I am not certain that "ecentric" includes this.
I am rooting for his proof to be correct but I am extremely skeptical I am rooting for him because so many "good" mathematicians (e.g.
Paul Cohen), have wanted to prove the Riemann Hypothesis for a very long time. It would be nice if a "little guy" got the prize.
(By the way, you should realize that the proof of the Bieberbach conjecture turned out to be fairly easy; compare this with Fred Almgren's BIG (1200 pages?) paper.)
I think you are going a bit overboard here. The Riemann hypothesis is the greatest open problem in mathematics right now and solving it would be HUGE:-). However, famous open problems usually do not advance mathematics that much and I suspect that a proof of the Riemann hypothesis would not introduce new techniques which would have wide (or even slightly wide) use in math. Look at some of the Fields metal papers (e.g. restricted Burnside problem - Zelmanov - 1994 metal) and tell me how they changed mathematics.
For influences on math, consider Dirac (crazy British scientist who predicted to existence of the positron) whose ideas led L. Schwartz, L. to write "Théorie des distributions. Tome I,II"; distribution theory has had a huge influence on analysis.
I looked at de Branges' "Apology for the proof of the Riemann hypothesis" and found no proof. Perhaps the proof is in another document?
Even though he is a kook, I root for him; no one believed him when he claimed he had proven the Bieberbach conjecture. I believe, however, that he has claimed to have proven the Riemann hypothesis previously. One should check carefully before trusting his claim.
Slashdot Mirror
Is `my data base cannot export' a "sound legal basis" for refusing (until after the election) this FOI request? Would the DOJ accept this excuse from a company under investigation? (I didn't think so.) There are some very selective blinders in use by the poster (and probably lots of other people).
If SCO can do it (i.e. provide a hard copy to IBM), then the DOJ certainly can. Just replace Ashcroft with McBride. The law could not be in any worse hands than it is now and we would actually get a printout.
"Other examples: First powered flight: France (NOT Wright Brothers)"
NPR had a special on the Wright Brothers on the 100th anniversary of their flight. As I recall, claims from Europe (France) to the first powered flight arose because the Wright brothers insisted on secrecy and did not fly "in public" until several years after their first flight. (I believe the conclusion was that the Wright brothers were first. They also tried to "own" flying in the US and filed a number of lawsuits against other US aircraft builders; reminds me of some companies' behaviors now.)
Other posts deal with the question of whether Colossus was actually a computer in the modern sense (e.g. stored programs).
If you look at Goldstine's publication list on MathSciNet (usually only available on University netwoks which subscribe), you find a strong collaboration with von Neumann and early uses of computers to solve scientific problems. For example:
... "
"Preliminary Discussion of the Logical Design of an Electronic Computing Instrument" by Arthur W. Burks, Herman H. Goldstine, and John von Neumann, 2d ed. Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, N. J., 1947.
"Planning and Coding of Problems for an Electronic Computing Instrument" by Herman H. Goldstine and John von Neumann, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, N. J., 1947.
"Numerical inverting of matrices of high order" by Herman H. Goldstine and John von Neumann, Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 53, (1947). 1021--1099.
"Calculation of plane cavity flows past curved obstacles" by G. Birkhoff, H. H. Goldstine and E. H. Zarantonello, Univ. e Politec. Torino. Rend. Sem. Mat. 13 (1954), 205--224 (with a review by David Gilbarg).
"Blast wave calculation" by Herman H. Goldstine and John von Neumann, Comm. Pure Appl. Math. 8 (1955), 327--353.
(I mention Gilbarg's review in part because I had an office (approximately) across from his at Stanford for a semester in 1991.) Gilbarg's review begins
"This paper describes the first systematic calculations ever carried out on cavity and jet flows past curved obstacles, comprising altogether fifty symmetric plane flows past convex and concave bodies, under several different conditions of streamline detachment. The computations were performed on a high speed digital computer, using an improved version of a scheme previously described by Birkhoff, Young, and Zarantonello
"skills" beyond "new ways to insult users without them noticing".
I think the crew at User Friendly (except Stef) would be insulted at your tone; these are important skills.
This is kind of cute (and weird); I love "Link of the Day."
I know part of the answer to the following question but not the complete answer.
How are recent graduates of Gene Golub's program doing?
If anyone should be able to get industry jobs, they should. The little I know is the getting interviews is not too hard but getting jobs may be a little harder right now. Anyone have any recent information?
"Once you see things from the owner's side ..."
I wonder who is the owner in some of these cases. Is it the person or group who started the business? Is it the venture capitalists who put money into it? Is it share holders? Or does management pay any attention to the "owner's" point of view?
"One last rule of thumb: Never change jobs for less that a 10% pay increase."
If you were working at Caldera when McBride arrived and you had a chance to move (even with a pay cut), I think this might have been the smart move. How will any programmer who stayed with SCO live this down? (I know; you had to feed the wife and kids, make payments on the credit cards and house, etc. Still, you will be marked for life.)
Is it not the case the MS Windows contains (or contained) code from BSD or Linux (e.g. TCP/IP stack), possibly without acknowledgement of the Regents of the University of California if BSD is being used? (I could be wrong about this.)
My bank (Bank of America) does not let me log on at all. I use Konqueror with Konqueror's Browser Identification "Site Specific Information" set to Internet Explorer. The "KDE vs IE" issue does not seem to be the problem. When you call BofA, you get "hours" of prerecorder/touch tone crap. I have just about given up on BofA. (For example, most banks do not care about your state of residence when you opened an account. BofA is really screwed up.) Just my 2 cents.
I phrased my post poorly. I should have started with "I cannot compare MS and FOSS since I only use Linux."
One way to judge the ease of use of different systems is for individuals to discuss their experiences. I was trying to do this by presenting a recent experience of mine in which a problem arose and was solved; I learned more about xfig and will be able make better use of it in the future. I suspect that the issue with "color[0,0,0]" might be resolved by changing a "config" file (.Xefaults ??).
If I were using MS, would it be as easy for me to learn about the applications I use? Would I run any risk if I publish a figure created using software which is not FOSS in a professional journal?
Do you notice that the slow ones (e.g. Dot.Com.CEO, Saeed al-Sahaf, bonch) seem to be on the M$ side? :)
This is an interesting post. Since most companies like publicity, I wonder if the poster could give us the company name and examples of the web applications. We can then see how much better are the applications developed using "ASP.NET technology" and why "we continue to see gains on a daily basis."
I cannot respond to this comment since I only use Linux.
Yesterday I was using xfig to create a figure for a (math) paper I intend to submit (to the Pacific Journal of Math). I wanted to use LaTeX labels for a figure and this was not working. I asked a colleague and he suggested I look at this page. I then had a little problem; "color[0,0,0]" was placed in front of each label (not certain why). I looked at the "figure.pstex_t" file and removed by hand the phrase color[0,0,0] from each label. Everything worked fine after that.
So, how much trouble was this? Anyone (or any mathematician) using LaTeX directly would have no trouble removing "color[0,0,0]" from the very small file figure.pstex_t. The only other thing required is to use the "special" tag for the label and the web page above explains this nicely. In my opinion, using LaTeX labels in xfig is very easy and difficulitites are easily overcome. Since someone directed me to the UK page above, I wondered how difficult it would be to find a good "info/man" page. In Konqueror, I typed "gg: xfig label latex" and got about 2720 links. The UK link above was number 7 on this list. (I did not check to see if the others also solve the problem but they all look reasonable.) Since google is the "standard" search engine, it seems to me that finding the information I needed is fairly quick and easy.
I do not know how the M$ "world" deals with this type of issue. I now know a little more about xfig; since I use xfig or other FOSS software to create graphical content for my research/publications, I am happy that this problem came up (and was easily resolved).
I strongly support this statement. I do not trust MS and will not use their products (OK, infrequent games of TA or TAK require Windows) but many people do use them; making MS products more secure is good for all of us.
Just imagine if he had a real CS PhD instead of a Math PhD ... or not.
Seriously, TeX is great (as is LaTeX). I happen to think Knuth can do anything. (OK, he needs to work on the "walking on water" bit.)
Many faculty do work very hard. I am trying to finish two papers before Tuesday (when I leave for a conference) so I can submit them to a journal editor (at Stanford); one is done but the other will be a week or two late so my coauthor in Australia can look over it. I have been spending about 18 hours per day working on these papers and I have not even written up the conference talk I will be giving in CA next week. Of course, I do not have a NSF grant right now and I am on summer vacation. (This is a normal vacation for me but I would prefer to do this stuff in Europe.)
There are some faculty who are lazy; they teach poorly and do not conduct research. I do not know what you do about them but I suspect that any "solution" would do much more harm than good.
We are starting to implement a SAP "solution" for financial aid, payroll, employee records, etc. (Wish us luck.) Before beginning this, the administration looked at current practice. It took about 70 steps to hire a new employee. Paperwork was processed locally, sent to the state capitol for signatures, returned for more signatures, etc. I think they reduced some of this (but I am not certain). Item 1) ("business reengineering") really can necessary.
Here the CS and Math departments have their own networks. I have no idea about ECE (Elec. & Comp. Eng.) except that the engineering departments are a strong source of campus worms, viri (sp?), spam, etc. The IT office is a joke; the IT head hates linux (although the VP who oversees IT is warming to linux).
Just as an aside, do you remember who was the Provost at Stanford from 1993-99? The same person who has done such a good job of protecting us from terrorists. The quality of her work speaks for itself.
One problem is that it "is smart business to save money" over the long run but businesses (or CEOs, who get bonus checks and stock options) try to save money over the short run. As one example, consider selling harmful products (e.g. asbestos, tobacco) which will make (or made) profits in the short run but will lose money in the long run. As another example, consider DEC. Imagine consumer priced Alphas being widely sold to gamers and others (the NSA cannot be all wrong) in 1999 or 2000. Imagine Cormack porting games to Alphas. Was it in the best business interest to sell DEC to Compaq? (And what great DEC ideas is HP sitting on? IA64 is certainly a better 64-bit architecture :-( )
There are certain communities with many aircraft plants which have a highly trained aerospace workforce developed over decades. People begin working at a parts supplier and the best of these get hired by the lowest level (big) factory. The best of these get hired by the next best factory (better wages, etc.) At the end of the process, Boeing hires the best of the best in this community. (OK, you know where I live now.)
This is not to say that the managers at Boeing are the best of the best; I do not know one way or the other but I have heard stories of "Boeing politics" and it is not pretty. However, aircraft companies move to this community because of the high quality of the workforce. There is no place in China (or Europe - manufacturing jobs which require very high quality are being moved from UK, etc. to this community) which compares. When the safety of your plane is in question, I hope the best products are used.
One problem with "offshoring" jobs is that price rather than quality is the primary consideration. I believe I read somewhere that in order for Boeing to sell planes to China, a plant was created in China to created wiring harnesses (and other wiring products). When time came to build the planes for China, the Chinese airline (or government) was very upset to learn that the wiring products (which are critical if you do not want the plane to crash and require very high quality work) built in China would be used on their planes. I believe they complained a great deal and tried to get the products made in a U.S. Boeing plant because the quality (and safety) of these particular U.S. products are the highest in the world. (I think there is one Boeing plant in the U.S. which includes a specialization in wiring issues and tests show its produces products which are much better than anything from Airbus or anyone else.)
"What makes him a kook?"
I did not mean this is a mean or unkind way. I like your term "ecentric" but you have realize that he has a big ego and I am not certain that "ecentric" includes this.
I am rooting for his proof to be correct but I am extremely skeptical I am rooting for him because so many "good" mathematicians (e.g. Paul Cohen), have wanted to prove the Riemann Hypothesis for a very long time. It would be nice if a "little guy" got the prize.
(By the way, you should realize that the proof of the Bieberbach conjecture turned out to be fairly easy; compare this with Fred Almgren's BIG (1200 pages?) paper.)
I think you are going a bit overboard here. The Riemann hypothesis is the greatest open problem in mathematics right now and solving it would be HUGE :-). However, famous open problems usually do not advance mathematics that much and I suspect that a proof of the Riemann hypothesis would not introduce new techniques which would have wide (or even slightly wide) use in math. Look at some of the Fields metal papers (e.g. restricted Burnside problem - Zelmanov - 1994 metal) and tell me how they changed mathematics.
For influences on math, consider Dirac (crazy British scientist who predicted to existence of the positron) whose ideas led L. Schwartz, L. to write "Théorie des distributions. Tome I,II"; distribution theory has had a huge influence on analysis.
I looked at de Branges' "Apology for the proof of the Riemann hypothesis" and found no proof. Perhaps the proof is in another document?
Even though he is a kook, I root for him; no one believed him when he claimed he had proven the Bieberbach conjecture. I believe, however, that he has claimed to have proven the Riemann hypothesis previously. One should check carefully before trusting his claim.