"The dream job... is to be left alone most of the time".
This is just the kind of thing that creates the divide between the front-line tech folks and less technically savvy managers. We fear what we don't understand and all that.
The way to remove the fear, and establish confidence in your competence, is through communication. Probably the most important skill for a tech worker these days is the ability to freely translate between geek and whatever the local spoken tongue is.
Going back to the original thread, the company may well have made an uninformed decision (outsourcing the keys to the kingdom). I'd argue that it's our job to inform them, and to develop the relationship so they trust the information we give.
Trying to maintain your work in a black box is probably not a good way to achieve this.
At last... a use for the central vacuum system in the house! Even has pipes in the walls! Wonder if turning on the vacuum improves cooling or just keeps the computers clean?
The escape trunks are rated for survival from 600 feet. They exist for two purposes:
1) To make your mom feel better
2) To quietly deliver and retrieve nasty looking gun toting individuals to/from foreign shores.
Standard operating procedures for US Navy subs (at least used to) state that you cannot submerge the boat with fewer than 100 fathoms of water beneath the keel. The rule is supposed to help prevent you from bouncing off the bottom (or any interesting uncharted bits sticking up from the bottom).
So let's see... escape trunks good to 600 feet. A fathom is 6 feet. Can't dive with less than 100 fathoms. Whoops.
Okay, so there's a Federal mandate to broadcast HDTV signals in a few years.
How valid is the assumption that the mandate will still be in effect when the due date rolls around?
If the assumption that Federal mandates are immutable and succeed is valid, why is my TV sized in diagonal inches, not centimeters?
Re:Netrek has had lots of influence and history.
on
Netrek
·
· Score: 1
If memory serves, mostly what we learned was that blessed clients is an exceptionally poor security model.
Under the original scheme, blessed clients were compiled with an 'official' version of blessed.c. Essentially a shared private key scheme. The evolution is pretty interesting: 1) Clever people figured out that the makefiles distributed with the client code (wheee... open source in the early 90's!) always linked objects in the same order. A binary comparison of a 'blessed' client and an unblessed client (different blessed.c) compiled under the same architecture produced the shared secret in blessed.c 2) Equally clever folks added commands in the makefile to randomize the link order 3) In a final response, everyone moved to RSA authentication. Got a suspicious client? Take it's public key out of the approved list.
Which also brings back fond memories... the admins for the five busiest servers all agreed to shift over to RSA authentication on the same day (synchronize your watches...). On the day of the switch, the official 'blessed.c' is posted "anonymously" to rec.games.netrek.
As for the folks who hacked on the code (both client and server), that's a story in and of itself. Before Linux's huge popularity (it was around, just hadn't gotten momentum yet), Netrek was an open source success story. The server architecture is relatively advanced (particularly for its time), and the community was open, cooperative and helpful. I still rely on tricks learned from hacking Netrek clients and servers, and from the folks who helped (still in debt to Nick Trown for the assist on porting the Vanilla Server to AIX. Primary lesson learned: avoid AIX).
Oh yeah, Netrek had a significant advantage over many other open-source efforts. When you were done, it was fun to play.
I've been using the potential_spammer@my.domain trick for years (pretty extensive/etc/aliases file.. don't forget to put in a comment to help remember where the address came from!).
To nuke an address, just delete the alias. The problem is that the spammers still try to send to the address (once on the list seems to mean forever on the list). Even though the mail never gets to your inbox, it's still using your bandwidth.. actually double because of the bounce message.
Anyone out there have a hack for sendmail that will simply blackhole mail bound for a given address? Just drop the connection when the offending RCPT command is received?
Take a peek at the ARMA web site. This is the professional association for records managers/management staff. They offer certifications, training, the works.
Basically, the solution is to hire a records manager with up to date certs and let them worry about it.
While it is encouraging to see retrenchment of invasive license terms, I don't think I'd classify this as a "win".
The license's original terminology tells us Borland's desires. It didn't work out because those terms seem extreme when compared to what we're used to.
Watch for small changes in this and other licenses over time that seek to end up with exactly the same terms (or worse).
I'll try to keep it short and sweet. Personal background is CS degree doing heavy technical programming. Current gig is running a stable of developers for an accounting firm.
The gang is primarily MIS grads with a couple of CS folks thrown in. The finding so far is that the MIS folks are satisfactory coders (with a strong preference for 4GL tools.. PowerBuilder, Lotus Notes, VB..) and, depending on training, pretty good at PL/SQL. All get good pay and have decent prospects for the future (as coders, or in the client service side of things).
I have come to rely on the CS types to establish policies, procedures, and guidelines as well as bearing the responsibility for designing all of the software.
YMMV with different MIS programs but around here they simply don't have the formal training in software engineering, formal methodologies, algorithm analysis, etc. Basically, left to their own devices, they don't build very good software. (if you think back to the days of 7 levels of correctness, we're talking level 3 here)
So... in this software shop (remember, accounting firm):
CS - get the design work, tend to supervise the MIS grads. Good job security, but limited advancement opportunities unless the number of products grows. Better pay.
MIS - get grunt work, poor job security if they limit themselves to only code work (evil phrases like "dime a dozen" come to mind). Less pay. Generally better opportunities to progress in the "business" side of things.
---
Oh yeah, BSCS (not BACS) means 20+ hours of math.
So how much will your life suck if you button up all of that CAT5 in a wall only to find a few years down the road that the rules/protocols/latest gadgets have changed. Think about houses with intercoms and blenders built into the counter tops.
If instead you run conduit (PVC will do nicely, EMT if you think you really need it) and leave pull strings behind, you can place/replace whatever turns you on in the future. Conduit also has the nice advantage that you can terminate it most anywhere. For that pipe coming out of the outside wall, way back in where the attic gets tight, just glue on an elbow and bring it out to where you can work on it. And while I'm on my soapbox, if you choose to leave blanked junction boxes in the wall (as suggested elsewhere) leave them at both standard heights: 14" OC for outlets, 48" OC for wall switches. The ones higher up let you come back and put in switches, IR repeaters, whatever.
(for those of you who don't have j-boxes where you need 'em, ask your local electrical supply store for, and how to use, "madison straps" to cut in extra boxes. Nice neat job, no drywall to patch)
It runs long, but it's really helpful to read the complaint and particularly the transcript.
PaeTec sold the service because, well, that's what they do. PaeTec's T&C's explicitly prohibit spamming (defined in the contract as unsolicited e-mail) and MonsterHut represented that they only send targeted e-mail to addresses that have opted in. Using PaeTec's definition, not spam.
Where PaeTec blew it is by allowing an addendum to the contract that essentially allows 2% of MonsterHut's mail to be spam. MonsterHut contracted the addendum to cover the case of what they claim are people who opted in and then forgot or who've just got an axe to grind. Furthermore, the 2% means that 2% of all recipients have to complain.
MonsterHut has sent 96 million e-mails. That means just under two million people have to complain before reaching the 2% threshold. Oops.
So the basic lesson learned here is: Don't allow stupid addendums to service contracts. Or, don't do things based on a percentage of volume.
In this particular case, it would seem (believe it or not) that if MonsterHut were found in violation of the 2% rule, an acceptable remedy would be to send out more spam on the bet that fewer than 2% would complain about the new round of mail. Relief through dilution.
(Consider the nuclear power industry. In the early days, dumping of radioactive material was legally limited to some number of microcuries per milliliter. Got something to dump that's too hot? Just add water. There's a radioactive stream in Windsor, CT. as result. These days disposal is limited by total microcuries. )
Using projectors on a backlit display is a nifty twist, but using a compute farm to drive multiple integrated displays is nothing new. Check out the work done by Hank Dietz (formerly with Purdue, now with U. Kentucky, author of the Linux Parallel Processing HOWTO). His stuff is based on the PAPERS parallel architecture. The folks with the REALM project at U Maryland ported Hank's stuff to MPI as well. All open source.
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This is just the kind of thing that creates the divide between the front-line tech folks and less technically savvy managers. We fear what we don't understand and all that.
The way to remove the fear, and establish confidence in your competence, is through communication. Probably the most important skill for a tech worker these days is the ability to freely translate between geek and whatever the local spoken tongue is.
Going back to the original thread, the company may well have made an uninformed decision (outsourcing the keys to the kingdom). I'd argue that it's our job to inform them, and to develop the relationship so they trust the information we give.
Trying to maintain your work in a black box is probably not a good way to achieve this.
At last... a use for the central vacuum system in the house! Even has pipes in the walls! Wonder if turning on the vacuum improves cooling or just keeps the computers clean?
Lucky you.
Not sure this is the typical experience (unless you're on a brand-new boat, and probably a ballitic missle sub at that... stinkin boomer fags...)
In eight years split between two boats:
- 3 major flooding incidents
- 4 fires
- 3 collisions with various things (usually ice)
What's the old saw? Something about hours of terminal boredom punctated by short spans of abject terror.
1) To make your mom feel better
2) To quietly deliver and retrieve nasty looking gun toting individuals to/from foreign shores.
Standard operating procedures for US Navy subs (at least used to) state that you cannot submerge the boat with fewer than 100 fathoms of water beneath the keel. The rule is supposed to help prevent you from bouncing off the bottom (or any interesting uncharted bits sticking up from the bottom).
So let's see... escape trunks good to 600 feet. A fathom is 6 feet. Can't dive with less than 100 fathoms. Whoops.
Okay, so there's a Federal mandate to broadcast HDTV signals in a few years.
How valid is the assumption that the mandate will still be in effect when the due date rolls around?
If the assumption that Federal mandates are immutable and succeed is valid, why is my TV sized in diagonal inches, not centimeters?
If memory serves, mostly what we learned was that blessed clients is an exceptionally poor security model.
Under the original scheme, blessed clients were compiled with an 'official' version of blessed.c. Essentially a shared private key scheme. The evolution is pretty interesting:
1) Clever people figured out that the makefiles distributed with the client code (wheee... open source in the early 90's!) always linked objects in the same order. A binary comparison of a 'blessed' client and an unblessed client (different blessed.c) compiled under the same architecture produced the shared secret in blessed.c
2) Equally clever folks added commands in the makefile to randomize the link order
3) In a final response, everyone moved to RSA authentication. Got a suspicious client? Take it's public key out of the approved list.
Which also brings back fond memories... the admins for the five busiest servers all agreed to shift over to RSA authentication on the same day (synchronize your watches...). On the day of the switch, the official 'blessed.c' is posted "anonymously" to rec.games.netrek.
As for the folks who hacked on the code (both client and server), that's a story in and of itself. Before Linux's huge popularity (it was around, just hadn't gotten momentum yet), Netrek was an open source success story. The server architecture is relatively advanced (particularly for its time), and the community was open, cooperative and helpful. I still rely on tricks learned from hacking Netrek clients and servers, and from the folks who helped (still in debt to Nick Trown for the assist on porting the Vanilla Server to AIX. Primary lesson learned: avoid AIX).
Oh yeah, Netrek had a significant advantage over many other open-source efforts. When you were done, it was fun to play.
I've been using the potential_spammer@my.domain trick for years (pretty extensive /etc/aliases file.. don't forget to put in a comment to help remember where the address came from!).
To nuke an address, just delete the alias. The problem is that the spammers still try to send to the address (once on the list seems to mean forever on the list). Even though the mail never gets to your inbox, it's still using your bandwidth.. actually double because of the bounce message.
Anyone out there have a hack for sendmail that will simply blackhole mail bound for a given address? Just drop the connection when the offending RCPT command is received?
Signal-to-Noise Ratio 99 dB (20 Bit Precision), 96 dB (16 Bit Precision)
Basically, the solution is to hire a records manager with up to date certs and let them worry about it.
While it is encouraging to see retrenchment of invasive license terms, I don't think I'd classify this as a "win".
The license's original terminology tells us Borland's desires. It didn't work out because those terms seem extreme when compared to what we're used to.
Watch for small changes in this and other licenses over time that seek to end up with exactly the same terms (or worse).
Nibbled to death by ducks.
I'll try to keep it short and sweet. Personal background is CS degree doing heavy technical programming. Current gig is running a stable of developers for an accounting firm.
The gang is primarily MIS grads with a couple of CS folks thrown in. The finding so far is that the MIS folks are satisfactory coders (with a strong preference for 4GL tools.. PowerBuilder, Lotus Notes, VB..) and, depending on training, pretty good at PL/SQL. All get good pay and have decent prospects for the future (as coders, or in the client service side of things).
I have come to rely on the CS types to establish policies, procedures, and guidelines as well as bearing the responsibility for designing all of the software.
YMMV with different MIS programs but around here they simply don't have the formal training in software engineering, formal methodologies, algorithm analysis, etc. Basically, left to their own devices, they don't build very good software. (if you think back to the days of 7 levels of correctness, we're talking level 3 here)
So... in this software shop (remember, accounting firm):
CS - get the design work, tend to supervise the MIS grads. Good job security, but limited advancement opportunities unless the number of products grows. Better pay.
MIS - get grunt work, poor job security if they limit themselves to only code work (evil phrases like "dime a dozen" come to mind). Less pay. Generally better opportunities to progress in the "business" side of things.
---
Oh yeah, BSCS (not BACS) means 20+ hours of math.
So how much will your life suck if you button up all of that CAT5 in a wall only to find a few years down the road that the rules/protocols/latest gadgets have changed. Think about houses with intercoms and blenders built into the counter tops.
If instead you run conduit (PVC will do nicely, EMT if you think you really need it) and leave pull strings behind, you can place/replace whatever turns you on in the future. Conduit also has the nice advantage that you can terminate it most anywhere. For that pipe coming out of the outside wall, way back in where the attic gets tight, just glue on an elbow and bring it out to where you can work on it. And while I'm on my soapbox, if you choose to leave blanked junction boxes in the wall (as suggested elsewhere) leave them at both standard heights: 14" OC for outlets, 48" OC for wall switches. The ones higher up let you come back and put in switches, IR repeaters, whatever.
(for those of you who don't have j-boxes where you need 'em, ask your local electrical supply store for, and how to use, "madison straps" to cut in extra boxes. Nice neat job, no drywall to patch)
(always check your local building/NFPA codes)
PaeTec sold the service because, well, that's what they do. PaeTec's T&C's explicitly prohibit spamming (defined in the contract as unsolicited e-mail) and MonsterHut represented that they only send targeted e-mail to addresses that have opted in. Using PaeTec's definition, not spam.
Where PaeTec blew it is by allowing an addendum to the contract that essentially allows 2% of MonsterHut's mail to be spam. MonsterHut contracted the addendum to cover the case of what they claim are people who opted in and then forgot or who've just got an axe to grind. Furthermore, the 2% means that 2% of all recipients have to complain.
MonsterHut has sent 96 million e-mails. That means just under two million people have to complain before reaching the 2% threshold. Oops.
So the basic lesson learned here is: Don't allow stupid addendums to service contracts. Or, don't do things based on a percentage of volume.
In this particular case, it would seem (believe it or not) that if MonsterHut were found in violation of the 2% rule, an acceptable remedy would be to send out more spam on the bet that fewer than 2% would complain about the new round of mail. Relief through dilution.
(Consider the nuclear power industry. In the early days, dumping of radioactive material was legally limited to some number of microcuries per milliliter. Got something to dump that's too hot? Just add water. There's a radioactive stream in Windsor, CT. as result. These days disposal is limited by total microcuries. )
Using projectors on a backlit display is a nifty twist, but using a compute farm to drive multiple integrated displays is nothing new. Check out the work done by Hank Dietz (formerly with Purdue, now with U. Kentucky, author of the Linux Parallel Processing HOWTO). His stuff is based on the PAPERS parallel architecture. The folks with the REALM project at U Maryland ported Hank's stuff to MPI as well. All open source.