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User: pwinkeler

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Comments · 31

  1. Re: This wouldn't be a problem on Data Miners Liken Obama Voters To Caesars Gamblers · · Score: 1

    Time to re-read Asimov's Foundation Trilogy it would seem

  2. New meaning for YRO on FAA Bill Authorizes Surveillance Drones Over US · · Score: 1

    This will now also stand for Your Rights Overhead

  3. Re:Objective C on 2011's Fastest Growing Language: Objective-C · · Score: 1

    Hmm - Except that the developers, unlike the prisoners, chose to develop for iOS. If Objective-C was so inferior to Java and the various Android releases that force you to use it, this thriving ecosystem would not exist.

  4. Re:BoA backed out on Fee Increase Attempt Inspires 'Dump Your Bank Day' · · Score: 2

    Yeah - and how about running your nightly set of debits from largest $ amount to smallest so that if you do go below 0 you get hit with the highest number of possible overage charges!

  5. Re:Which probably explains... on US Military Commissions Sock Puppet Program · · Score: 1

    You're right - and glad of it, too!
    One of the real problems with the "let the good deeds speak for themselves" approach is that it takes a long time to bear fruit. We are talking generations here; not weeks/months/years. The only good news about that with respect to places like Iraq and Afghanistan is that generational turn-over scales are a lot shorter while they're out there killing each other off.
    Nonetheless, the timeframes far and away exceed what most all elected officials worry about so all this jibber/jabber is really moot anyway.

  6. The Irony of it! on US Military Commissions Sock Puppet Program · · Score: 1

    Calling the pro-US propaganda "Operation Earnest Voice". I wonder what is being perpetrated under the guise of "Operation Bald Faced Lies"? Seriously, how about doing good deeds and talking about them openly? Mom always said that worked best anyway.

  7. Re:Virtualization to the rescue on Why You Shouldn't Reboot Unix Servers · · Score: 1

    Sure - reboot away; but how often will you be rebooting your ESXi server? I mean, it is exposed to the same sources of bugs that Linux is (i.e. Humans). My point here is that once you start to give in to the reasoning that you should reboot on a regular basis you might also start wondering whether the architect is about to get ready for his regular reboot of our universe.

    Remember now: it *IS* turtles all the way down!

  8. If you show me yours... on Shareholders Push Hard For Apple Succession Plan · · Score: 1

    Most all responsible corporations, publicly held or otherwise, have succession plans. But sharing them with the world at large beyond the: "if so-and-so leaves, we'll re-structure management and hire into such-and-such new positions" would be crazy. I mean, what would it say? If Steve were to die tomorrow we have an agreement that Balmer takes over? Seriously the plan can't publicly name names so that makes it pretty useless to publish. So I say, any corporation that wants to see Apple's succession plan should be required to simultaneously publish its plans.

    Barring that, I call upon all responsible corporate citizens to hand over copies of their succession plans to Julian Assange who will publish them for you.

  9. Re:Before everybody jumps to conclusions on WikiLeaks Supporters' Twitter Accounts Subpoenaed · · Score: 1

    Duh - they already have the content: you can search Twitter too

  10. Re:Does anyone need more reason to quit social med on WikiLeaks Supporters' Twitter Accounts Subpoenaed · · Score: 1

    Ouch! Indeed! That is how the chilling effect begins: people start whispering to each other instead of talking out loud at the water cooler; unspoken glances are used to arrange gatherings of no more than three in quiet attics and basements. I am thinking that perhaps a better response would be for EVERYONE to start following Julian Assange on Twitter no? Then Twitter could simply say: here is the list; all 190+ million users and their access records; have fun!

  11. Remember MS' forays onto other architectures? on ARM-Based Servers Coming In 2011 · · Score: 1

    Remember Windows on:
      Dec Alpha
      Intel Itanium
    I wouldn't trust Windows running on anything other than Intel x86 for a long time - there is just too much crappy code there that never even could handle byte-order.

    Not to mention that from a sysadmin perspective the notion of servers with differing binary architectures are a nightmare unless you have an executable file format that can hide these details. So we're talking something like CMU's mach-o, as used on Macs. Here I would like to recall the fun days when Sun claimed it had a multi-architecture solution when all they did was create NFS mountpoints with embedded environment variables that expanded based on the mounting system's native architecture.

    There needs to be some serious fundamental re-architecting in that OS before it's ready to run on more than architecture.

  12. Re:Different Kinds of Companies on We Really Don't Know Jack About Maintenance · · Score: 1

    Very good point and I am glad to see someone finally raising it. My take on all this is that as a result we'll never see the development of software turn into an engineering discipline. It will always be an art because of our ability to solve problems creatively and a mess because we screw it up in ways we cannot predict

  13. Re:Different Kinds of Companies on We Really Don't Know Jack About Maintenance · · Score: 5, Interesting

    When I worked at Analogic Corporation [www.analogic.com] in the mid-eighties, the then owner/president/ceo Bernie Gordon refused to grant anyone working in software the title "Engineer". We were all "just" programmers. Until we could show him specs and tolerances and statistical failure rates of our designs we were nothing but a bunch of untrustworthy programmers. And you know what? He was right: we still are.

  14. Re:2 Months is very fast on Steve Jobs Had a Liver Transplant Two Months Ago · · Score: 1

    Maybe not iSurgery but they may very well have used Osirix: http://m.macupdate.com/info.php/id/29646/osirix-for-iphone on their iPhones to plan the surgery

  15. Re:I know the feeling. on A Black Day For Internet Freedom In Germany · · Score: 1

    And so the cookie crumbles: loose some freedom; gain some security holes. All in a day's work for dedicated government officials, LOL.

  16. Re:I know the feeling. on A Black Day For Internet Freedom In Germany · · Score: 1

    And I am sure it won't be long before DNS proxies will show up on ports other than 53...!

  17. Foreign court influences in the US? I think not! on Canada Rejects Business Method Patents · · Score: 1

    US Courts facing peer pressure from Canadian courts? Based on how I hear our current crop of Senators arguing that Sonia Sotomayor is an enemy of the state because she reads foreign court opinions I can only imagine this Canadian decision seals the fate for business patents in perpetuity here...

  18. Shared ancestor? I should hope not! on Texas Vote May Challenge Teaching of Evolution · · Score: 1

    Come to think of it, maybe I do agree that George Bush and I could not possibly share a common ancestor!

  19. Re:CS is the new chemistry... on ACM Urges Obama To Include CS In K-12 Core · · Score: 2, Insightful

    And here we go again: confusing math with arithmetic. Long division is basic arithmetic, not math. Math involves manipulating concepts, a far broader concept than just numbers.

    That said I am interested in introducing a Computer Science curriculum starting in middle school but only insofar as it clearly calls out the notion of an algorithm. Way too much of today's middle and high school education allows kids to get away with doing well by simply being good at rote memorization: contrasting this with the notions of deduction and logic by being forced to capture them formally in an algorithm of sorts that can be followed by a computer introduces a level of rigor not otherwise enforceable.

  20. Re:Nerds. on American Nerd · · Score: 1

    Then let's hope you're a slow programmer :-)

  21. Re:Sounds Good, But Won't Work on Net Neutrality Vets Join Obama FCC Transition Team · · Score: 1

    Click...
    My point being that you are 100% correct so why not fleece the morons a bit and use the proceeds to start chipping away at educating the next generation?

  22. Re:Whitelist Only on VoIP's Security Vulnerabilities · · Score: 1

    Actually I have been building up a blacklist with my Asterisk setup and it is interesting to see how this over time has reduced calls from any number of annoying sources. Of course new ones keep popping but at least I don't run the risk of missing a call.

    As a funny aside, I did at one point put a NY number on the black list because they kept calling, left no message, and when I tried calling the number it routed to a "this number is disconnected" message. It turns out that this major, nationwide organization's NY headquarters had a poorly programmed phone switch which still presented an old number as its callerid on outbound calls. Callerid as it stands today will be part of the problem I suspect, not the solution...

  23. Re:VoIP "pitfalls" on 2.7 Million VOIP Subscribers in the United States · · Score: 1

    Having run my own OSS PBX, Asterisk for over a year now I was able to use its Call Detail Records (CDR) database to figure out that my best bet was to use Broadvoice and its unlimited in-state plan at $9.99/mo and Voicepulse with its DirectConnect! service to pay 2.4 cents/min for all other calls. I estimate my phone bills will be around $15/mo instead of paying SBC $38 just for local service!

    Not to mention that I can now take and make multiple calls simultaneously.

    It's all in knowing your usage when designing a provider solution but having your own PBX also gives you the flexibility to actually mix and match.

    As usualy YMMV.

  24. Re:Still about $20 too much on VoIP Price War Declared · · Score: 1

    Wow - Are these personal calls or is this business?

    Assuming you work 8 hours of every day (no weekends off) that means you spend a full fifth of your time on the phone. Impressive.

    If you spend that much time on the phone outside of work you might want to get out a bit more (unless you don't sleep, LOL!)

  25. Re:Still about $20 too much on VoIP Price War Declared · · Score: 2, Interesting

    With Voicepulse Connect http://www.voicepulse.com/ I pay $7.99/mo for an unlimited minute incoming phone number and 2.95 cents/min for outgoing calls (local or long-distance). Even with a wife and two daughters my call accounting tells me I would spend less just paying by the drink than my SBC local analog line at $34 (taxes, fees and caller-id included) by almost $20/mo!
    In short, you'd be surprised how few minutes you really do use.
    On top of that you might want to consider Voicepulse connect because I now get multiple incoming calls and multiple outgoing calls at no extra cost other than that the meter runs for outgoing calls.

    The catch? You gotta run Asterisk http://www.asterisk.org/ and get at least one FXS port card from Digium http://www.digium.com/.

    Anything over $15/mo is robbery in my opinion