I'm sure he was suggesting they stay off the network for their own protection. After all, there are a LOT of viruses on Windows networks - especially if you're running Office.
It's nice of him to try to keep the Linux boxes safe - but he shouldn't worry. They're strong enough to surive even in such a dangerous environment.
Just to clarify on this point: Many, many companies have government relations departments. I know that Amtrak, Disney, AOL/Time Warner and even local governments have "government relations departments". You can even get a masters degree in Government Relations, believe it or not (my sister has one.)
Government relations can be as innocuous as making sure that all appropriate permits have been obtained at the local level to pushing for new laws (eg, DCMA) at the Federal level. It does not necessarily imply enormous power - merely that the company takes its interactions with local, state and federal governments seriously.
When I was working at HBO, we held a "decorate your cubicle" contest. As I tend to be a bit obsessive-compulsive about competitions, I decided to really go to town on my cubicle.
I picked up some scrap pieces of wood from the local lumber shop (basically gardening stakes) and nailed them together to create a simple inverted-V roof that sat on top of the cubicle walls.
I then covered the frame with the brown paper that you can wrap packages in (came from UPS) to make a roof, as well as the sides of the cubicle. With a little imagination, it looked like a little brown house.
After that, I used cotton along the edges to mimic the icing of a gingerbread house, and bought lots of lollipops and candy canes which I stuck on the outside.
In the end, it really did look remarkably like a Gingerbread cubicle.
One of my coworkers, once he saw it, replaced the little nametag on the outside (which read Peter Hamlen, Systems Analyst) with Esmerelda, Wicked Witch.
The best part was that Dec 28th was "Family Day" at HBO, so there was a steady stream of children coming onto the floor saying "I want to see the gingerbread house". Not a lot of work got done that day...:)
For those of us who are hopelessly out-of-touch on this issue,
1) How long will it take (in your opinion) for C# to become a marketable skill (ie, how long until someone might need to hire a C# programmer?)
2) Will this ECMA approval make #1 arrive more quickly or not?
A new market in which Microsoft does NOT hold a commanding lead (yet) is the handheld market (Palm, Windows CE, etc.)
If you were on the oversight committee, what specific actions or restrictions would you place on Microsoft's behavior in this Marketplace?
As a followup question:
If Microsoft included a "hotsync" capability built into its OS (so that Windows CE handhelds automatically sync with the desktop machine), would you consider that acceptable behavior?
Maybe I don't understand this well enough to ask questions, but it seems that this could have huge potential for some things like skin cancer...
It seems to me that an important point is that we've figured out how to connect to individual cells. To quote the article:
In this new biological application, attaching quantum dots directly to cells eliminates the need for external electrodes. [...] And since molecular recognition is used, it is a "smart" technology that can pick precisely which capability will be controlled on each neuron to which a quantum dot is attached.
Which means that we might be able to connect (at least electronically) to individual cancer cells on the skin surface. Does that allow us to do things like disrupt the cell electrically, or possibly electrocute the cell?
I admit it's more fun to think about controlling neurons and the brain, but I think the aspects that we can be precise at the cellular level on a living being is much more interesting.
Apologies for the non-technical language - I'm not up on all the techni-speak stuff.
Typical security requires what is termed "multi-factor" authentication - that is, merely stealing a single piece of information will not give you access to the system.
Cryptocards accomplish this by requiring the user to enter in a PIN into the CARD in order to get the current passphrase (which is then entered into the computer).
This means that in order to login you must:
1) have physical access to a "smart card"
2) have the associated PIN to the smart card.
Thus, someone who steals the smart card is out of luck without the PIN, and someone who knows the PIN is out of luck without the smartcard.
I think there's another interesting question around "what is the manager's role in helping people deal with burnout?" For example, if you're the manager of the sysadmin who's burning herself out trying to do the remote install, what should you do?
Speaking from personal experience, I have had employees who - for various reasons - drove themselves into burnout mode. Usually those reasons had to do with someone trying to meet unrealistic deadlines or cope with too much work.
One important lesson is to keep track of people working long hours and only encourage it when it's useful. Some specific times when it's not useful:
when the person has a bug they can't solve. Bugs get solved when brainpower is applied, not when brute force is applied. No one has brainpower after 12 hours.
when the person is frantically adding new features/code under deadline (they usually implement poorly/buggily)
when the work will not be a quality piece. Lord knows there is nothing more depressing than working 18 hour days to get a half-baked product out the door - and then have to work 18 hour days to deal with the bugs!!!
And finally, when you see someone burning themselves out, understand that management (ie, you) are probably responsible. You've either given them too much work, or you're distributing it poorly, or you've promised upper management too much. Realistic planning and resource utilization goes a long way to stopping burnout.
It should be noted that a person with smallpox is not contagious until the person is showing symptoms. Therefore, a terrorist would have to have boils and rashes in order to be contagious - and therefore more likely to be identified as having smallpox. (In addition, dying in battle is different than dying a slow, agonizing death by smallpox - I think it would be harder to get martyrs to take smallpox.)
In addition, the smallpox vaccine works extremely quickly - you can be vaccinated several days later (after having been exposed) and the vaccine will work. So, although the terrorist walking with smallpox is a threat, it's not the worst.
Finally, smallpox is extremely hard to contain - so a terrorist spreading smallpox in NYC could easily end up infecting his own community (what with worldwide travel so available these days.)
The "typhoid terrorist" scenario is certainly possible, but I think it is unlikely.
We've done fur, now onto dead people.
on
Return of the Dragon
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
In the quoted 1995 Wired article, there's an interesting line:
" They still can't do hair very well, though. "The big challenge [is] fur," says Johnston. "
Today we have Sulley from Monsters Inc - every hair in his fur is separately modeled. I guess since they've mastered fur, they can now move onto dead people.
Jutus suggests that you should ship in wood crates rather than cardboard - but it looks like his boxes were dropped from a substantial height.
Does anyone know if wooden crates would work better? It seems to me that the computers inside would be just as hurt - ie, the damage to the contents is unrelated to whether the box survives.
(Admittedly, he also lost some stuff which fell out when the box was destroyed. So wood does some good...)
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I'm sure he was suggesting they stay off the network for their own protection. After all, there are a LOT of viruses on Windows networks - especially if you're running Office.
It's nice of him to try to keep the Linux boxes safe - but he shouldn't worry. They're strong enough to surive even in such a dangerous environment.
Re: "Head of government relations"
Just to clarify on this point: Many, many companies have government relations departments. I know that Amtrak, Disney, AOL/Time Warner and even local governments have "government relations departments". You can even get a masters degree in Government Relations, believe it or not (my sister has one.)
Government relations can be as innocuous as making sure that all appropriate permits have been obtained at the local level to pushing for new laws (eg, DCMA) at the Federal level. It does not necessarily imply enormous power - merely that the company takes its interactions with local, state and federal governments seriously.
When I was working at HBO, we held a "decorate your cubicle" contest. As I tend to be a bit obsessive-compulsive about competitions, I decided to really go to town on my cubicle.
:)
I picked up some scrap pieces of wood from the local lumber shop (basically gardening stakes) and nailed them together to create a simple inverted-V roof that sat on top of the cubicle walls.
I then covered the frame with the brown paper that you can wrap packages in (came from UPS) to make a roof, as well as the sides of the cubicle. With a little imagination, it looked like a little brown house.
After that, I used cotton along the edges to mimic the icing of a gingerbread house, and bought lots of lollipops and candy canes which I stuck on the outside.
In the end, it really did look remarkably like a Gingerbread cubicle.
One of my coworkers, once he saw it, replaced the little nametag on the outside (which read Peter Hamlen, Systems Analyst) with Esmerelda, Wicked Witch.
The best part was that Dec 28th was "Family Day" at HBO, so there was a steady stream of children coming onto the floor saying "I want to see the gingerbread house". Not a lot of work got done that day...
For those of us who are hopelessly out-of-touch on this issue,
1) How long will it take (in your opinion) for C# to become a marketable skill (ie, how long until someone might need to hire a C# programmer?)
2) Will this ECMA approval make #1 arrive more quickly or not?
A new market in which Microsoft does NOT hold a commanding lead (yet) is the handheld market (Palm, Windows CE, etc.)
If you were on the oversight committee, what specific actions or restrictions would you place on Microsoft's behavior in this Marketplace?
As a followup question:
If Microsoft included a "hotsync" capability built into its OS (so that Windows CE handhelds automatically sync with the desktop machine), would you consider that acceptable behavior?
It seems to me that an important point is that we've figured out how to connect to individual cells. To quote the article:
- In this new biological application, attaching quantum dots directly to cells eliminates the need for external electrodes. [...] And since molecular recognition is used, it is a "smart" technology that can pick precisely which capability will be controlled on each neuron to which a quantum dot is attached.
Which means that we might be able to connect (at least electronically) to individual cancer cells on the skin surface. Does that allow us to do things like disrupt the cell electrically, or possibly electrocute the cell?I admit it's more fun to think about controlling neurons and the brain, but I think the aspects that we can be precise at the cellular level on a living being is much more interesting.
Typical security requires what is termed "multi-factor" authentication - that is, merely stealing a single piece of information will not give you access to the system.
Cryptocards accomplish this by requiring the user to enter in a PIN into the CARD in order to get the current passphrase (which is then entered into the computer).
This means that in order to login you must:
1) have physical access to a "smart card"
2) have the associated PIN to the smart card.
Thus, someone who steals the smart card is out of luck without the PIN, and someone who knows the PIN is out of luck without the smartcard.
I think there's another interesting question around "what is the manager's role in helping people deal with burnout?" For example, if you're the manager of the sysadmin who's burning herself out trying to do the remote install, what should you do?
Speaking from personal experience, I have had employees who - for various reasons - drove themselves into burnout mode. Usually those reasons had to do with someone trying to meet unrealistic deadlines or cope with too much work.
One important lesson is to keep track of people working long hours and only encourage it when it's useful. Some specific times when it's not useful:
when the person has a bug they can't solve. Bugs get solved when brainpower is applied, not when brute force is applied. No one has brainpower after 12 hours.
when the person is frantically adding new features/code under deadline (they usually implement poorly/buggily)
when the work will not be a quality piece. Lord knows there is nothing more depressing than working 18 hour days to get a half-baked product out the door - and then have to work 18 hour days to deal with the bugs!!!
And finally, when you see someone burning themselves out, understand that management (ie, you) are probably responsible. You've either given them too much work, or you're distributing it poorly, or you've promised upper management too much. Realistic planning and resource utilization goes a long way to stopping burnout.
It should be noted that a person with smallpox is not contagious until the person is showing symptoms. Therefore, a terrorist would have to have boils and rashes in order to be contagious - and therefore more likely to be identified as having smallpox. (In addition, dying in battle is different than dying a slow, agonizing death by smallpox - I think it would be harder to get martyrs to take smallpox.)
In addition, the smallpox vaccine works extremely quickly - you can be vaccinated several days later (after having been exposed) and the vaccine will work. So, although the terrorist walking with smallpox is a threat, it's not the worst.
Finally, smallpox is extremely hard to contain - so a terrorist spreading smallpox in NYC could easily end up infecting his own community (what with worldwide travel so available these days.)
The "typhoid terrorist" scenario is certainly possible, but I think it is unlikely.
Today we have Sulley from Monsters Inc - every hair in his fur is separately modeled. I guess since they've mastered fur, they can now move onto dead people.
Jutus suggests that you should ship in wood crates rather than cardboard - but it looks like his boxes were dropped from a substantial height.
Does anyone know if wooden crates would work better? It seems to me that the computers inside would be just as hurt - ie, the damage to the contents is unrelated to whether the box survives.
(Admittedly, he also lost some stuff which fell out when the box was destroyed. So wood does some good...)