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User: nairnr

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  1. Awareness or Paranoia on Unreasonable Searches When Going to Work? · · Score: 2, Interesting

    They say the first casualty of war is the truth, the second seems to be personal liberty and freedom. The problem with terrorist war, is that you really don't know for certain who your enemy really is. The net result is that in order to catch the few, you inconvience the many. We have enjoyed a great deal of freedom as a result of being somewhat isolated from the rest of the world. The only threats were fairly well defined and easy to differentiate. The security measures are a reaction to events rather then precaution.

    This is not unusual, witness the guarding of schools with the tragic violence experienced in the past. We recognize that the gun toting kids are not the norm, however we figure out who they are by searching everybody.

    It is a balance, a pendulum. I am sure when we are not actively fighting a terrorist war things will relax. For now, we inconvience ourselves for perceived safety. As a Canadian, I haven't had to deal with this to any great degree. So, how free do you want to be, at what cost would you have freedom at the expense of safety...

  2. OpenSource != leaderless. on Nurturing Ideas Into Open Source Projects? · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't think that OpenSource should be equated with leaderless. When you get into big tasks, there still needs to be some sort of orginization with regards to what you want to accomplish. Asking everyone what they would like to see is one thing, trying to implement them all is another. Just because everyone can code, doesn't neccesarily mean that everything needs to go into blessed code. Any Project needs to have some sort of Project Manager.

    There are a number of projects I would like to start when I have the time, some of which I would like to develop on SourceForge or whatever. However, I would still like some say as to what features I think fit within the scope or ambition of a project.

  3. Putting them to work. on Truly Off-The -Shelf PCs Make A Top-500 Cluster · · Score: 5, Informative

    Well, it seems like super clusters are becoming very easy to build hardware-wise. If you throw enough commodity at a problem, it becomes easier. I would think the biggest problem with supercomputers is no longer the hardware itself, but networking, and the programming to take advantage of the hardware. These computers still only really work for something that distributes easily. The biggest factors are now the ability to distribute, and schedule work for each node. The more nodes you engage, the more you hope your problem is CPU bound, so it will scale more.

    Data transfer and message passing are such a big issue I belive the most important developments are in the networking topologies and hardware for these environments.

    That said, I still want one in my basement :-)

  4. Programming usage on Who Has Faster Pipes? Linux, Win2000, WinXP Compared · · Score: 1

    Well, of course I always would like to see Linux come out ahead, but the real question is -- Does it really matter? While pipes are an important part of Unix programming, are they useful in Windows? I mean I have used up to 10 - 15 little utilites piped together to get a desired output on Linux. I am not sure there is a parallel under Windows. Not being a programmer under Windows I don't know what kind of IPC they prefer to use...

    So in short, nice test, but does it give us any thing useful?

  5. Why you shouldn't just depend on one OS... on Gartner Group Suggests Dumping IIS For Now · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I think this is a good indication of why you shouldn't just go with a single platform for all of your services. It may look good on paper, but the fact of the matter is that the Microsoft environment right now is so vunerable with regard to exploits, that it doesn't make sense any more.

    This kind of attack can be seen in the ecosystem as well. If everything is homogeneous, then a single form of attack can do a great deal of devastation.

    I guess the powers that be think that learning a new OS is bad, but it just proves "The Right tool, for the right job". Right now, IIS, is not it!

  6. What do you need the most? on Choosing a Router/Firewall for the Home LAN · · Score: 2, Informative

    It depends on what you need the most. I like having a full machine with 2 NIC's as my firewall as it is the most configurable and can be modified to meet my needs. I run a little webserver with database and I can open up pop, and other services on a whim. Once you get a firewall box, you are limited somewhat by what you can do, and if you want to put up any other services, you will need to tunnel to another machine anyway..

    I expect for the average SOHO, all they want is connectivity, rather then the ability to do everything...

  7. One Liberty Plaza ready to fall. on More On Tragedy · · Score: 1

    I just heard on CBC coverage that One Liberty Plaza a 54 story building around the WTC complex is ready to fall. They have evacuated the area around it. It has already partially collapsed. There is now a 10 block perimeter for evacuation of emergence personnel.

  8. Re:What right do they have? on Image Detecting Search Engines' Legal Fight Continues · · Score: 1

    Not so, during times that I have volunteered, I have a number of ocassions that I was photographed for the Calgary Herald, or Sun. Each time, I had to give them my consent on file for them to use the picture. If your face is clearly visible, then they need a release from you. I also worked at a day camp where a lot of the kids would not give a release for any publications.

  9. Price of LEGO on Why Can't LEGO Click? · · Score: 1

    I think a few people have pointed out some problems that LEGO may be having. It is all well and good that the kits that they come out with are interesting, but they are also pretty pricey. I remember a friend of mine coming home from his trip to Europe, with a set that was really quite amazing. But, it was also very expensive. I think he paid over $300CDN for it. You could build lots with it, but smaller sets are so specific that you can't.

    I remeber having an apple box full of lego blocks. We would build towers up to the roof, and then topple them over. Spend an hour finding all of the pieces, and build it again. We also had great fun with our imagination. I wish them luck.

  10. Interesting Business model on Extreme Telecommuting · · Score: 1

    It is interesting to see tele-commuting playing such a large role. I am not sure that I have ever seen a business rely on remote people to such a large degree. The only concern I would have -- what happens when the network goes down. This is not a big stretch... I suppose if they were using something CVS like where they develop locally and commit changes for all to poke and prod at.

    I telecommute every so often, but I like coming into the office, without it, some of the interaction that defines a company can't happen. Group meetings must be a lot of fun.

  11. Re:NO IPs FOR DEVICES!!! on IPv4 vs IPv6: The Road Ahead · · Score: 1

    4 billion addresses may be available, but there is a lot of wasted address space. If you consider MIT and Standford as an example, the each have a class A giving them 16 million addresses each. Do you think every one of those is spoken for? Not very likely at all. It is not an issue of the addresses available, but how it can be effectively allocated.

  12. You are the Weakest Link... on SSH Vulnerability and the Future of SSL · · Score: 1

    The best thing to do is a security audit, you need to determine whether or not you are really vunerable, or if you are a target. We have learned time and again, that security cannot depend on a single method or product. If you only depend on a firewall, and it gets hacked, you are toast. Conversely, if you are using SSH with passwords, and your passwords are weak, then what it is the point... If you really are concerned a great deal about security, you need a multi-tiered approach, where the goal is to minimize risk, you can never get rid of it, with out pulling the plugs.

  13. Re:Astonishing, but how does it really benefit? on Highest Resolution Wall Around · · Score: 1

    Well, for one, visualizing massive data sets without windowing, or reducing the data density. I would think that in order to do zooming you may need more horsepower then to simply render a data set. This really is for the "Big Picture" type of applications. Think atmospheric interactions or galaxy simulations...