These passive biometrics are all great(TM) solutions -- they take advantage of highly idiosyncratic, repetitive, and difficult to forge characteristics of each individual, and use technology to accurately recognize these characteristics and authenticate their targets.
Except these solutions fail at unacceptable rates when they encounter real-world exceptions. As mentioned by others, gait and keystroke cadence are both consistent, but easily changed by injury, illness, drugs, varying clothing, and just mood.
At least this research group recognizes this and points to the need for a *suite* of passive biometric indicators. But, they think a 1% false positive error rate is acceptable -- one chance in 100 that the thief gets in!?! It needs to be at least 3 orders of magnitude better.
Looks to me like another example of technologists getting enamored of their technology and failing to actually solve the basic problem.
When will manufacturers, especially software manufacturers, ever understand the concept that it is *MY* computer or device, *NOT THEIRS* ???
As noted above in all the "What could go wrong?" posts, this kind of central control is fraught with problems and unintended consequences..
If they simply take an approach to design and engineering that respects fact that it is not their device, all kinds of problems go away.
A proper approach would be for the lights to broadcast their status and schedule for the next few minutes (i.e., how long until the next change, how long will be the next red, etc.), and allow the vehicle and driver to decide what to do about it.
Sure, If we're at the beginning of a long red, then it is probably best to shut down. But, if we're making a right turn and/or trying to get someone to the hospital at 3AM, have paused to check that there is no crossing traffic, then we should drive on. If the hybrid motor is trying to recharge low batteries, the motor should keep running. Etc. We could even have a dashboard or heads-up display showing the status so the driver can make better decisions. Different car designers can code the best algorithm for *their* particular car design, e.g., a hybrid might use a completely different response pattern than a truck or a sportscar.
What is so hard about that? [Warning - oversimplification following] Decentralized systems are generally more flexible, and have shallower bugs than centralized systems. So, why do they persist in designing that way?
I'm glad to hear that at least one state is starting to implement a reasonable law. Between corporations too cheap to pay for systems that implement even a hint of real security, and perhaps a few lazy developers, we have a mess on our hands. I don't really understand the "yikes" exclamations in TFA. At least now there are some consequences for being so sloppy with your and my data.
My approach to coding web apps is that we are playing theater in the round -- playing to at least three audiences at once. In any pool of users, you have Group-1) probably 98% of users in various states of computer illiteracy for whom you need a very well thought-out UI that gets them through the app with no errors (and good recovery *when* they make errors, you have Group-2) 2% users that have a clue and want things really streamlined, and you have Group-3) a half-dozen bunches of malicious crackers.
All three groups are always present, and you cannot ignore any of them. Ignore Group-1, and you'll pretty much have no audience. Ignore Group-2, and you drive off the 'experts' to whom much of Group-1 looks for advice, and you'll consequently lose not only Group-2 but also a lot of Group-1. Ignore Group-3 and you'll get cracked and mess up a lot pf people's lives by losing their data, and/or you'll get embarrassed.
Unfortunately, too many buyers and devs of software ignore Group-3 because of costs, and the "it'll never happen to us" attitude. They need this kind of stick to nudge them towards doing the right thing.
I come from a very libertarian perspective, and I hate excess regulation, but I'm smart enough to know that the magic Market alone does not fix everything; it needs some smart regulation to prevent excesses or omissions, and appears to this is an example of such good regulation (presuming that they haven't screwed up the details).
The right way for Facebook to do this would have been for them to implement this with a payments system, and obviously, opt-in, instead of in by default and opt-out.
The advertisers should be paying for the use of the photos. The settings should be [Unavailable], and [Available / Price per View], with the price per view set by the user. The setting should be both for the full set of pics, with individual overrides for specific pics (e.g., pics that the user doesn't want used, or wants to set a higher or lower price). Obviously, better pics should command higher prices, and cheaper pics might get used more, and users wanting only fame could set the price to zero.
If properly implemented with accounting and logs (views, display, clicks, earnings, etc.), they'd actually be doing something respectable, instead of just pimping out all their user's property without their permission.
They also seem to have completely overlooked the issue of model's releases, which their vague TOS docs don't really cover. Of course, a good ecommerce/micropayments implementation would cover it properly as in if you set it to available.
"Our secret plan is to watch what gets acquired and fund the next company."
. Anyone who is following is, by definition, behind.
. By the time any company grows and gets acquired, the ship has not only left the dock, it has arrived at its next port of call.
. Even trying to "fund companies doing whichever the next-generation product would have been." is a hopelessly backwards-looking strategy. I've always had the impression that Andreessen is stuck in 1995, so I guess it is no surprise that he hasn't got the confidence to generate any new groudbreaking ideas himself, and the best he can come up with is A) watching what gets bought, and B) trying to fund 24-year olds as if they are wiser.
. If this is the best he can think of, he's sunk, and the investors deserve what they will get, which is plenty of capital losses for their tax returns.
I've been fortunate enough to have been involved as the lead tech/designer/architect/coder/whatever in co-founding, building and selling several successful software companies. I'm now in physical design manufacturing, and it is very satisfying, and there is a surprising amount of crossover.
Even those purely software ("information economy"?) projects benefited heavily from by earlier experience in physical/manual work through my HS/college years. I tended to strongly emphasize initial design to minimize coding and minimize machine loading before starting to code.
Possibly the biggest lesson transferred from physical work to software work was the lesson to work hard to avoid excess work. I found it worth it to spend many hours to AVOID writing code. This was not being lazy, as it is often initially faster to write code than to not write code. The basic lesson is: What takes time to run? Code. Where are the bugs? In your code. So, write no code that not absolutely required. Simplicity. It takes discipline and work, which is best learned from physical work, and not in a cubicle.
Especially in the late 90's, I became flabbergasted by the people that just wanted to start-writing-code and fix it later. Or, who wanted to just take the short-cut of sticking their fingers in everyone else's code and data structures. Fortunately, I prevailed in most of those debates, and in one company, in about 2yrs we were taking business from a much larger and better funded competitor who (surprise) had scalability problems that we (no surprise) avoided. When you work in the physical world, you learn well that short-cuts are almost always bad ideas, and that time spent sharpening the tool will more than pay off when it comes time to cut your material.
Since selling and leaving the last company, I did a lot of thinking about what to do next. Rather than doing another software business, I chose to start a business in advanced materials, which wound up mostly in composites (carbon fiber, Kevlar, etc.).
What I find remarkable is how much this feels like the computer industry did in the 1980s -- vibrant, interesting new developments and tools popping up all the time, good access to people who know about the tools and materials I'm using or considering (vs having to teach so-called tech support how to do their jobs just to extract an occasional clue). And, while it was really cool to see people happy to use software that we built that helped them do their jobs better, it seems even more satisfying now to build something physical with my own hands and see it used (but, maybe that is just because it is what I'm doing now).
This change, especially since the last economic crash, has also made me think even more how fundamentally bad an idea it is to oursource our manufacturing. It is an extremely dangerous and long-lived MBA fad (and I'm definitely glad to see the MBAs being properly skewered in Dilbert last week).
For our society, I only hope that the lesson is soon learned and that we can reverse the trend. Information Technology, and even management techniques, do have a place. BUT, that place is in support of the actual act of building something. If you never get around to actually building or growing something, you haven't done anything. And, one only need to glance at the trade deficits to see that we're building far too little.
Speaking from the experience of an idealist -- Be Practical.
Think of the long term. If you are a person or group who has good ideas, you will have more (many more). If you can be organized and motivated enough to produce good working products, you can do that again.
What *IS* hard to obtain is capital to start whatever biz or project you want.
If this sellout will leave you with sufficient capital to start whatever you want in the future, then TAKE IT, do a great job, and stay as long as it is good for everyone.
After that, you will have the freedom to decide what to do next. That is truly valuable. I'm taking advantage of it now -- built and sold one good company, and now really enjoying starting a completely different business, which is acually more fun!
OTOH, if it is just a buyout into a cushy corporate job, then either turn it down, or raise the price until it is high enough to buy your freedom.
If you do decide to do it, get the best terms and get a really GOOD lawyer on your side, and make the contract solid. Decide what you REALLY need (not just what you want), and stick to that, and try to get some wants too. Be creative, and flexible, and if they meet it, great. If not, move on.
Either way you decide, move forward without second-guessing yourselves.
Enjoy it, and Good Luck!
Sandia Labs supercomputer simulations
on
When Comets Attack
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· Score: 1
Sandia Labs (the same group that does nuclear simulations) did work on this several years ago. They produced some excellent simulations of asteroid explosions, and their effects in the admosphere and on the ground.
The electrical system needs to be redesigned in the same way as the Interstate Highway System was redesigned in the 1950s -- Designed from a defense perspective, with a variety of beneficial side effects.
The electrical system should have 30-50% of the power generated where it is used, not almost 100% at central stations. Yes, large generation stations have economies of scale, but they also have major systemic weaknesses. With a significant minority of the power requirement generated locally, the system will become extremely robust, and even if the central system fails for some reason, the core functions continue uninterrupted.
Whether or not this particular computer infiltration issue is hyped, there are a wide variety of threats to the grid, from simple overloads, solar flares (one took out all of Quebec and some of the Northeast in the 1980s). In wartime, it is simple to take out the grid with a single high-altitude nuclear burst; zero casualties, zero physical damage, and half the grid is toast from the EMP.
Once power is out, for a few hours it is a bit of a holiday, but after a few days, there are serious problems. Communications are mostly out after the backup power runs out, frozen food rots, fuel is unavailable because pumps have no power, and even water is a problem without pumps. In the northern tier in winter, people start freezing because even oil and gas heaters won't start without electric signals & starters. In short, it becomes a real problem to maintain society within a week.
However, with 30% distributed power, we can lose the grid entirely for months, and maintain communication, food and water, and transportation. of course, it would be inconvenient, but not a disaster.
And, it would have the side benefit of helping us say "FU" to OPEC, since many of the distributed systems would be solar and wind.
Good point, but I don't think it is quite that binary.
The 'wisdom of crowds' solution is already used in very critical situations, with processors designed for accuracy; e.g., the Space Shuttle has 5 separate computer systems, and accept a majority result from the primary 4, or use the 5th as a tiebreaker if the primary 4 are split.
If you abolutely NEED more speed than the 'accurate' processors can be provide, and one of these 'inaccurate' processors is insufficiently accurate, then a crowd could improve their accuracy enough to be useful, and still provide the speed you need.
So, while crowd configurations would probably not be the most commonly deployed design, it isn't a completely unreasonable design approach.
... they would need to use a crowd of these processors and some kind of "wisdom of crowds" algorithm to figure out which of the output values is good.
So, in rough figures, if 30 processors is enough to get a good reliable answer from the 'crowd' of procesors, and the overhead of the "wisdom of crowds" algorithm is less than 14%, then maybe we have a system that uses the same power and is about 6x as fast, but no power savings.
If a less good answer is acceptible, then maybe only a few processors are necessary, and there is a net power savings. If it takes more than a crowd of 30 to make a completely reliable answer, then it costs power, but we still get a faster system.
It could be useful for certain applications, if carefully applied. In addition to the media playback and gaming apps already mentioned, it could be good in robotics, where speed amd low power count for a lot, and the feedback loops do a lot of successive approximation anyway.
These will determine if it is worth anything at all.
First, is there an Exit Strategy? As in, is there a definitive committment to sell the company at some point, either via an IPO or to another company? Remember, the shares will ONLY ever be worth anything if they can be sold.
If the owners have taken VC money on board, then they have such a plan, as VCs will only invest with an enforced committment to sell (implemented by any of a variety of 'incentive' mechanisms).
Without VC, if the owners are clearly planning and executing a growth plan, with a defined product (or service product) strategy, and a plan to sell out, there is hope for the shares. If they are just operating the company to earn income, e.g., a consultancy, then there is little hope, and all the other advice is moot -- you should ignore the offer, as the shares will likely never be worth anything.
If it looks like the shares may be worth something one day, then you need a good vesting schedule. Five years is too long. 4 years is much more typical. Also, you want a gradual vesting schedule, not a "cliff" in which you vest zero and then 100% after X years.
The vesting schedule I used in both the companies I co-founded and sold worked well for all parties. The plan started vesting the allocated options 6 months after the plan (or the new hire) started, and then vested the the options at 2% - 3% per month until 100% of the options were vested. E.g., if you were on the 3% plan, 30% of your options/shares would be vested after 16 months, 60% after 26 months, etc.
The plan also provided for 100% vesting with any substantial change of control event, e.g., the company gets sold ahead of schedule.
Also note that what you probably want are cheap options (which have fewer tax consequences), instead of outright grants of shares, but you MUST consult a tax attny on that one.
Good to see a clear explanation of how things actually work in the real world. .
I almost laughed out loud about the bear comment (that a gun wouldn't do much about a bear). .
I was reminded about the Alaskan Park Ranger who was confronted with a grizzly bear last year. He had to unload the whole magazine from his.44 magnum pistol into the bear but he did kill it in time to save himself. The Park Service later found that the bear contained the remains (incl. bits of shoes and clothing) of three different hikers. Too bad one of them didn't have a good gun on hand. .
Ideas and Guns can both be very dangerous things in society, and both are necessary to a functioning society. Yes, occasionally, someone will go off irresponsibly shooting off ideas or bullets, and both can cause much harm to others in society. But, once you take either one away from the people, you no longer have a society, you have a totalitarian state.
If you look at the video (http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=6323927 beware of stupid advert first), you will see that he takes about 15sec to cross the gorge, and 6 sec hovering to land.
This is about 100feet/sec, or about 68mpg. I wouldn't be surprised if his peak speed were close to 100mph.
This does not mean I'm any less impressed with the technology or the stunt, I just like to get the figures right also.
The principle that the airwaves are public and anyone can 'listen to' any transmission (or perhaps more correctly, 'look at' any part of the EM spectrum) is very useful.
IIRC, this principle has been the basis for throwing out laws that forbid the use of radar detectors, which are, of course, simply radio receivers tuned to a particular frequency.
What happens when this representative gets elected and comes to a situation where his open source constituents collectively decide he should vote one way on an issue, and the rep cannot vote that way for reasons of conscience, or for reasons (s)he cannot fully reveal, e.g., info from secret briefings (assuming for this discussion that the info is reliable).
What about the situation where his Free Party votes one way but the rest of his constituency clearly feels differently? (S)He does represent ALL the consistuents in the district...
This siutation is guaranteed to happen, and is a dilemma faced by all reps at one time or another. But, this will be more of a problem for this rep and his party.
I started out reading with TFAs with the attitude of "F*ing overreaching, mistargeted govt jerks...". But your post convinced me that, in this case, the Texas govt might just be right after all.
Yes, child porn is absolutely abhorrent, and so is an overreaching governent.
Many others here have described appropriate 'hands off' ways to deal with this without the invasive spying you describe.
In contrast, you are abusing the trust of the people who pay you. It is no different than being hired as a plumber to upgrade a kitchen and going searching in the bedroom to see if the customer has any dirty books. You are going where you are not authorized, and if you did it in my shop, I'd have you hauled up on whatever cracking laws applied, even though I have nothing to hide. It is truly offensive, and if you want to do it, you should be regulated.
Do not take your situation personally. You should be as helpful as you can just what they seem to expect you to do, as well as you can under the circumstances. Arguing about your situation will almost surely gain no result other than distracting management more than they already are, and not help anybody.
Essentially, they don't want you to fish for them anymore, they want you to teach them to fish.
Aside from the many security and legal reasons for changing your status immediately, this is probably the best way for your employes to find out *before* you leave exactly where they most need your knowledge, and what help you can provide to those who continue on with your projects, so that you can provide it before you are gone. This is much more valuable than having you merely provide another few weeks of work.
Speaking more generally, everyone should always carefully plan your departures. When you walk into the manager's office to give notice, you should be fully prepared to be immediately walked to your desk to grab your box of stuff in 5min, and then be walked out the door. Although it does not unusually go that way, it is frequently enough done that you should be ready for it. I.e., take most of your non-obvious or bulky stuff home ahead of time, get copies of work product that you are entitled to keep for reference, clean up your files and email, etc.
Also be prepared to deal with vacation time, personal time, benefits and other HR issues. Obviously, one of the best ways to prevent being hosed by evil HR drones is to use up all your vacation before handing in your notice. However, if this is impractical, you should know that in most states, "cancelling" vacation and not paying the amount owed is a violation of labor law. If your employer tries this, them *immediately* call your state labor board (or whatever the dept is called in your state), or a good labor attny, and get the problem resolved. Also, know what you need to do about Health Insurance (e.g., take coverage at your next job, sign up for COBRA coverage, etc.).
And, of course, it goes without saying to be nice, even if they aren't...
A friend gave me a piece of advice that has served me very well. He said to "never say NO, always give the customer a choice".
In this case, many posters have already pointed out the obvious problems with security of their and other customers' data on the main server, and the problems with badly formed queries trashing your performance.
But, instead of saying "no you cannot acess the main server to enter your queries", tell them that you understand their need, explain the issues, provide options X, Y, and Z to meet their need, and provide rough costs and schedules for each. (Of course, none of these options involve actually running queries on the main server.)
The options might inclulde setting up a replica reporting-only server in your data center, shipping the data to them periodically (assuming that is reasonable based on data ownership, size, available transfer techniques, etc.), and/or setting up a replica reporting-only server in their site. Of course, you'll come up with better options since you know the business and the customer, but the core idea is find a solution and bring it to them.
The customer may not like the costs or the schedule, but they are much more likely to remain your customer than if you just said "NO". The best case is that they buy one of your solutions, which is a win for everyone.
"In future work, we plan to analyze in detail the second-tier computers and try to find ways to identify the operators of the Storm Worm"
Don't kill the PCs like the Borg drones, and don't kill the botnet.
Instead, let it run, infected and reporting back, so as to track down the operators. At that point, they can be killed, arrested, or whatever consequence requires the least paperwork (depending on the country from which the sucm are operating).
As mentioned in TFA, Fox is planning to start a new business news channel, to compete with CNBC. Interesting that TFA makes no mention of her anticipated role in the new organization.
The man they hired to run the new news channel, Roger Ailes, also helped start CNBC.
The WSJ has an agreement with CNBC to provide content. The WSJ also just got bought by Rupert Murdoch's empire, which also owns Fox. Ailes says that there won't be a conflict.
I bought SkypeOut and one SkypeIn line for my business, costing about $25 for the year ($14 for a SkypeIn telno and $10 for Out calls and forwarding @ 2c/min). After some evaluation, my assessment was that it would be Good Enough(tm), and certainly better than paying Verizon's $80+ per month for another fixed line. I have not yet made a single Skype-Skype call.
The best asset of Skype for me is the architecture. My Skype service can be located wherever I am attached to the 'net at the moment. I can pick up the biz line at my home office or at the shop-office, or even most places when I am travelling. I can also use either my PC, laptop, or the handset/base station. I am really looking forward to the WiFi phones to be ready for prime time.
The quality has been generally acceptable, at least from here in the Northeast US. The main problems have been with DTMF, which fails about 5% of the time, and on calls forwarded to my cell phone, on which I have to call back almost half the time. Over the last 10 months that I've used it, both of these have gotten noticeably better. But this improvement isn't enough to completely commit as a biz user, or to completely drop my home phone line.
The big feature that is lacking is outgoing Caller ID. I often have to call customers and vendors on their cell phones, and most of them check CallerID first, so it is not good to show up as 'unknown' or '000-012-3456'. With good ID, and another significant step in quality, I'd switch to Skype for all land-line type services at home and biz.
I'd like to see eBay put in the investment for the next quality improvement, and for good CallerID. With that, I think they'd have a lot of people switching.
Of course, if they start trying to push adverts through the service, they can just watch everyone go away.
Slashdot Mirror
Its Hydrogen Hydroxide HOH,
like Lithium Hydroxide LiOH,
and Sodium Hydroxide NaOH,
. . . just walking up the periodic table's left column . . . . that's the way I always thought of it.
There has been research and even products made to do the same thing in recognizing the distinct patterns or each users' typing. I recall first hearing of this in the early 90s, and it probably goes back further than this. Here's two examples:
http://cs.unc.edu/~fabian/papers/fgcs.pdf
http://www.securitysoftwarezone.com/keystroke-recognition-review273-7.html
These passive biometrics are all great(TM) solutions -- they take advantage of highly idiosyncratic, repetitive, and difficult to forge characteristics of each individual, and use technology to accurately recognize these characteristics and authenticate their targets.
Except these solutions fail at unacceptable rates when they encounter real-world exceptions. As mentioned by others, gait and keystroke cadence are both consistent, but easily changed by injury, illness, drugs, varying clothing, and just mood.
At least this research group recognizes this and points to the need for a *suite* of passive biometric indicators. But, they think a 1% false positive error rate is acceptable -- one chance in 100 that the thief gets in!?! It needs to be at least 3 orders of magnitude better.
Looks to me like another example of technologists getting enamored of their technology and failing to actually solve the basic problem.
When will manufacturers, especially software manufacturers, ever understand the concept that it is *MY* computer or device, *NOT THEIRS* ???
As noted above in all the "What could go wrong?" posts, this kind of central control is fraught with problems and unintended consequences..
If they simply take an approach to design and engineering that respects fact that it is not their device, all kinds of problems go away.
A proper approach would be for the lights to broadcast their status and schedule for the next few minutes (i.e., how long until the next change, how long will be the next red, etc.), and allow the vehicle and driver to decide what to do about it.
Sure, If we're at the beginning of a long red, then it is probably best to shut down. But, if we're making a right turn and/or trying to get someone to the hospital at 3AM, have paused to check that there is no crossing traffic, then we should drive on. If the hybrid motor is trying to recharge low batteries, the motor should keep running. Etc. We could even have a dashboard or heads-up display showing the status so the driver can make better decisions. Different car designers can code the best algorithm for *their* particular car design, e.g., a hybrid might use a completely different response pattern than a truck or a sportscar.
What is so hard about that? [Warning - oversimplification following] Decentralized systems are generally more flexible, and have shallower bugs than centralized systems. So, why do they persist in designing that way?
I'm glad to hear that at least one state is starting to implement a reasonable law. Between corporations too cheap to pay for systems that implement even a hint of real security, and perhaps a few lazy developers, we have a mess on our hands. I don't really understand the "yikes" exclamations in TFA. At least now there are some consequences for being so sloppy with your and my data.
My approach to coding web apps is that we are playing theater in the round -- playing to at least three audiences at once. In any pool of users, you have Group-1) probably 98% of users in various states of computer illiteracy for whom you need a very well thought-out UI that gets them through the app with no errors (and good recovery *when* they make errors, you have Group-2) 2% users that have a clue and want things really streamlined, and you have Group-3) a half-dozen bunches of malicious crackers.
All three groups are always present, and you cannot ignore any of them. Ignore Group-1, and you'll pretty much have no audience. Ignore Group-2, and you drive off the 'experts' to whom much of Group-1 looks for advice, and you'll consequently lose not only Group-2 but also a lot of Group-1. Ignore Group-3 and you'll get cracked and mess up a lot pf people's lives by losing their data, and/or you'll get embarrassed.
Unfortunately, too many buyers and devs of software ignore Group-3 because of costs, and the "it'll never happen to us" attitude. They need this kind of stick to nudge them towards doing the right thing.
I come from a very libertarian perspective, and I hate excess regulation, but I'm smart enough to know that the magic Market alone does not fix everything; it needs some smart regulation to prevent excesses or omissions, and appears to this is an example of such good regulation (presuming that they haven't screwed up the details).
The right way for Facebook to do this would have been for them to implement this with a payments system, and obviously, opt-in, instead of in by default and opt-out.
The advertisers should be paying for the use of the photos. The settings should be [Unavailable], and [Available / Price per View], with the price per view set by the user. The setting should be both for the full set of pics, with individual overrides for specific pics (e.g., pics that the user doesn't want used, or wants to set a higher or lower price). Obviously, better pics should command higher prices, and cheaper pics might get used more, and users wanting only fame could set the price to zero.
If properly implemented with accounting and logs (views, display, clicks, earnings, etc.), they'd actually be doing something respectable, instead of just pimping out all their user's property without their permission.
They also seem to have completely overlooked the issue of model's releases, which their vague TOS docs don't really cover. Of course, a good ecommerce/micropayments implementation would cover it properly as in if you set it to available.
"Our secret plan is to watch what gets acquired and fund the next company."
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Anyone who is following is, by definition, behind.
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By the time any company grows and gets acquired, the ship has not only left the dock, it has arrived at its next port of call.
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Even trying to "fund companies doing whichever the next-generation product would have been." is a hopelessly backwards-looking strategy. I've always had the impression that Andreessen is stuck in 1995, so I guess it is no surprise that he hasn't got the confidence to generate any new groudbreaking ideas himself, and the best he can come up with is A) watching what gets bought, and B) trying to fund 24-year olds as if they are wiser.
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If this is the best he can think of, he's sunk, and the investors deserve what they will get, which is plenty of capital losses for their tax returns.
I've been fortunate enough to have been involved as the lead tech/designer/architect/coder/whatever in co-founding, building and selling several successful software companies. I'm now in physical design manufacturing, and it is very satisfying, and there is a surprising amount of crossover.
Even those purely software ("information economy"?) projects benefited heavily from by earlier experience in physical/manual work through my HS/college years. I tended to strongly emphasize initial design to minimize coding and minimize machine loading before starting to code.
Possibly the biggest lesson transferred from physical work to software work was the lesson to work hard to avoid excess work. I found it worth it to spend many hours to AVOID writing code. This was not being lazy, as it is often initially faster to write code than to not write code. The basic lesson is: What takes time to run? Code. Where are the bugs? In your code. So, write no code that not absolutely required. Simplicity. It takes discipline and work, which is best learned from physical work, and not in a cubicle.
Especially in the late 90's, I became flabbergasted by the people that just wanted to start-writing-code and fix it later. Or, who wanted to just take the short-cut of sticking their fingers in everyone else's code and data structures. Fortunately, I prevailed in most of those debates, and in one company, in about 2yrs we were taking business from a much larger and better funded competitor who (surprise) had scalability problems that we (no surprise) avoided. When you work in the physical world, you learn well that short-cuts are almost always bad ideas, and that time spent sharpening the tool will more than pay off when it comes time to cut your material.
Since selling and leaving the last company, I did a lot of thinking about what to do next. Rather than doing another software business, I chose to start a business in advanced materials, which wound up mostly in composites (carbon fiber, Kevlar, etc.).
What I find remarkable is how much this feels like the computer industry did in the 1980s -- vibrant, interesting new developments and tools popping up all the time, good access to people who know about the tools and materials I'm using or considering (vs having to teach so-called tech support how to do their jobs just to extract an occasional clue). And, while it was really cool to see people happy to use software that we built that helped them do their jobs better, it seems even more satisfying now to build something physical with my own hands and see it used (but, maybe that is just because it is what I'm doing now).
This change, especially since the last economic crash, has also made me think even more how fundamentally bad an idea it is to oursource our manufacturing. It is an extremely dangerous and long-lived MBA fad (and I'm definitely glad to see the MBAs being properly skewered in Dilbert last week).
For our society, I only hope that the lesson is soon learned and that we can reverse the trend. Information Technology, and even management techniques, do have a place. BUT, that place is in support of the actual act of building something. If you never get around to actually building or growing something, you haven't done anything. And, one only need to glance at the trade deficits to see that we're building far too little.
Speaking from the experience of an idealist -- Be Practical.
Think of the long term. If you are a person or group who has good ideas, you will have more (many more). If you can be organized and motivated enough to produce good working products, you can do that again.
What *IS* hard to obtain is capital to start whatever biz or project you want.
If this sellout will leave you with sufficient capital to start whatever you want in the future, then TAKE IT, do a great job, and stay as long as it is good for everyone.
After that, you will have the freedom to decide what to do next. That is truly valuable. I'm taking advantage of it now -- built and sold one good company, and now really enjoying starting a completely different business, which is acually more fun!
OTOH, if it is just a buyout into a cushy corporate job, then either turn it down, or raise the price until it is high enough to buy your freedom.
If you do decide to do it, get the best terms and get a really GOOD lawyer on your side, and make the contract solid. Decide what you REALLY need (not just what you want), and stick to that, and try to get some wants too. Be creative, and flexible, and if they meet it, great. If not, move on.
Either way you decide, move forward without second-guessing yourselves.
Enjoy it, and Good Luck!
Sandia Labs (the same group that does nuclear simulations) did work on this several years ago. They produced some excellent simulations of asteroid explosions, and their effects in the admosphere and on the ground.
A summary with some great videos is posted here:
http://www.sandia.gov/news/resources/releases/2007/asteroid.html
The electrical system needs to be redesigned in the same way as the Interstate Highway System was redesigned in the 1950s -- Designed from a defense perspective, with a variety of beneficial side effects.
The electrical system should have 30-50% of the power generated where it is used, not almost 100% at central stations. Yes, large generation stations have economies of scale, but they also have major systemic weaknesses. With a significant minority of the power requirement generated locally, the system will become extremely robust, and even if the central system fails for some reason, the core functions continue uninterrupted.
Whether or not this particular computer infiltration issue is hyped, there are a wide variety of threats to the grid, from simple overloads, solar flares (one took out all of Quebec and some of the Northeast in the 1980s). In wartime, it is simple to take out the grid with a single high-altitude nuclear burst; zero casualties, zero physical damage, and half the grid is toast from the EMP.
Once power is out, for a few hours it is a bit of a holiday, but after a few days, there are serious problems. Communications are mostly out after the backup power runs out, frozen food rots, fuel is unavailable because pumps have no power, and even water is a problem without pumps. In the northern tier in winter, people start freezing because even oil and gas heaters won't start without electric signals & starters. In short, it becomes a real problem to maintain society within a week.
However, with 30% distributed power, we can lose the grid entirely for months, and maintain communication, food and water, and transportation. of course, it would be inconvenient, but not a disaster.
And, it would have the side benefit of helping us say "FU" to OPEC, since many of the distributed systems would be solar and wind.
Good point, but I don't think it is quite that binary.
The 'wisdom of crowds' solution is already used in very critical situations, with processors designed for accuracy; e.g., the Space Shuttle has 5 separate computer systems, and accept a majority result from the primary 4, or use the 5th as a tiebreaker if the primary 4 are split.
If you abolutely NEED more speed than the 'accurate' processors can be provide, and one of these 'inaccurate' processors is insufficiently accurate, then a crowd could improve their accuracy enough to be useful, and still provide the speed you need.
So, while crowd configurations would probably not be the most commonly deployed design, it isn't a completely unreasonable design approach.
... they would need to use a crowd of these processors and some kind of "wisdom of crowds" algorithm to figure out which of the output values is good.
So, in rough figures, if 30 processors is enough to get a good reliable answer from the 'crowd' of procesors, and the overhead of the "wisdom of crowds" algorithm is less than 14%, then maybe we have a system that uses the same power and is about 6x as fast, but no power savings.
If a less good answer is acceptible, then maybe only a few processors are necessary, and there is a net power savings. If it takes more than a crowd of 30 to make a completely reliable answer, then it costs power, but we still get a faster system.
It could be useful for certain applications, if carefully applied. In addition to the media playback and gaming apps already mentioned, it could be good in robotics, where speed amd low power count for a lot, and the feedback loops do a lot of successive approximation anyway.
These will determine if it is worth anything at all.
First, is there an Exit Strategy? As in, is there a definitive committment to sell the company at some point, either via an IPO or to another company? Remember, the shares will ONLY ever be worth anything if they can be sold.
If the owners have taken VC money on board, then they have such a plan, as VCs will only invest with an enforced committment to sell (implemented by any of a variety of 'incentive' mechanisms).
Without VC, if the owners are clearly planning and executing a growth plan, with a defined product (or service product) strategy, and a plan to sell out, there is hope for the shares. If they are just operating the company to earn income, e.g., a consultancy, then there is little hope, and all the other advice is moot -- you should ignore the offer, as the shares will likely never be worth anything.
If it looks like the shares may be worth something one day, then you need a good vesting schedule. Five years is too long. 4 years is much more typical. Also, you want a gradual vesting schedule, not a "cliff" in which you vest zero and then 100% after X years.
The vesting schedule I used in both the companies I co-founded and sold worked well for all parties. The plan started vesting the allocated options 6 months after the plan (or the new hire) started, and then vested the the options at 2% - 3% per month until 100% of the options were vested. E.g., if you were on the 3% plan, 30% of your options/shares would be vested after 16 months, 60% after 26 months, etc.
The plan also provided for 100% vesting with any substantial change of control event, e.g., the company gets sold ahead of schedule.
Also note that what you probably want are cheap options (which have fewer tax consequences), instead of outright grants of shares, but you MUST consult a tax attny on that one.
Good Luck, however it turns out!!
Good to see a clear explanation of how things actually work in the real world.
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I almost laughed out loud about the bear comment (that a gun wouldn't do much about a bear).
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I was reminded about the Alaskan Park Ranger who was confronted with a grizzly bear last year. He had to unload the whole magazine from his .44 magnum pistol into the bear but he did kill it in time to save himself. The Park Service later found that the bear contained the remains (incl. bits of shoes and clothing) of three different hikers. Too bad one of them didn't have a good gun on hand.
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Ideas and Guns can both be very dangerous things in society, and both are necessary to a functioning society. Yes, occasionally, someone will go off irresponsibly shooting off ideas or bullets, and both can cause much harm to others in society. But, once you take either one away from the people, you no longer have a society, you have a totalitarian state.
If you look at the video (http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=6323927 beware of stupid advert first), you will see that he takes about 15sec to cross the gorge, and 6 sec hovering to land.
This is about 100feet/sec, or about 68mpg. I wouldn't be surprised if his peak speed were close to 100mph.
This does not mean I'm any less impressed with the technology or the stunt, I just like to get the figures right also.
The principle that the airwaves are public and anyone can 'listen to' any transmission (or perhaps more correctly, 'look at' any part of the EM spectrum) is very useful.
IIRC, this principle has been the basis for throwing out laws that forbid the use of radar detectors, which are, of course, simply radio receivers tuned to a particular frequency.
What happens when this representative gets elected and comes to a situation where his open source constituents collectively decide he should vote one way on an issue, and the rep cannot vote that way for reasons of conscience, or for reasons (s)he cannot fully reveal, e.g., info from secret briefings (assuming for this discussion that the info is reliable).
What about the situation where his Free Party votes one way but the rest of his constituency clearly feels differently? (S)He does represent ALL the consistuents in the district...
This siutation is guaranteed to happen, and is a dilemma faced by all reps at one time or another. But, this will be more of a problem for this rep and his party.
I started out reading with TFAs with the attitude of "F*ing overreaching, mistargeted govt jerks...". But your post convinced me that, in this case, the Texas govt might just be right after all.
Yes, child porn is absolutely abhorrent, and so is an overreaching governent.
Many others here have described appropriate 'hands off' ways to deal with this without the invasive spying you describe.
In contrast, you are abusing the trust of the people who pay you. It is no different than being hired as a plumber to upgrade a kitchen and going searching in the bedroom to see if the customer has any dirty books. You are going where you are not authorized, and if you did it in my shop, I'd have you hauled up on whatever cracking laws applied, even though I have nothing to hide. It is truly offensive, and if you want to do it, you should be regulated.
Excellent points. The GP should do what he is being paid to do and not overstep his bounds.
Do not take your situation personally. You should be as helpful as you can just what they seem to expect you to do, as well as you can under the circumstances. Arguing about your situation will almost surely gain no result other than distracting management more than they already are, and not help anybody.
Essentially, they don't want you to fish for them anymore, they want you to teach them to fish.
Aside from the many security and legal reasons for changing your status immediately, this is probably the best way for your employes to find out *before* you leave exactly where they most need your knowledge, and what help you can provide to those who continue on with your projects, so that you can provide it before you are gone. This is much more valuable than having you merely provide another few weeks of work.
Speaking more generally, everyone should always carefully plan your departures. When you walk into the manager's office to give notice, you should be fully prepared to be immediately walked to your desk to grab your box of stuff in 5min, and then be walked out the door. Although it does not unusually go that way, it is frequently enough done that you should be ready for it. I.e., take most of your non-obvious or bulky stuff home ahead of time, get copies of work product that you are entitled to keep for reference, clean up your files and email, etc.
Also be prepared to deal with vacation time, personal time, benefits and other HR issues. Obviously, one of the best ways to prevent being hosed by evil HR drones is to use up all your vacation before handing in your notice. However, if this is impractical, you should know that in most states, "cancelling" vacation and not paying the amount owed is a violation of labor law. If your employer tries this, them *immediately* call your state labor board (or whatever the dept is called in your state), or a good labor attny, and get the problem resolved. Also, know what you need to do about Health Insurance (e.g., take coverage at your next job, sign up for COBRA coverage, etc.).
And, of course, it goes without saying to be nice, even if they aren't...
A friend gave me a piece of advice that has served me very well. He said to "never say NO, always give the customer a choice".
In this case, many posters have already pointed out the obvious problems with security of their and other customers' data on the main server, and the problems with badly formed queries trashing your performance.
But, instead of saying "no you cannot acess the main server to enter your queries", tell them that you understand their need, explain the issues, provide options X, Y, and Z to meet their need, and provide rough costs and schedules for each. (Of course, none of these options involve actually running queries on the main server.)
The options might inclulde setting up a replica reporting-only server in your data center, shipping the data to them periodically (assuming that is reasonable based on data ownership, size, available transfer techniques, etc.), and/or setting up a replica reporting-only server in their site. Of course, you'll come up with better options since you know the business and the customer, but the core idea is find a solution and bring it to them.
The customer may not like the costs or the schedule, but they are much more likely to remain your customer than if you just said "NO". The best case is that they buy one of your solutions, which is a win for everyone.
"In future work, we plan to analyze in detail the second-tier computers and try to find ways to identify the operators of the Storm Worm"
Don't kill the PCs like the Borg drones, and don't kill the botnet.
Instead, let it run, infected and reporting back, so as to track down the operators. At that point, they can be killed, arrested, or whatever consequence requires the least paperwork (depending on the country from which the sucm are operating).
They are attempting to create a counterfeit person to persuade people to dislike counterfeit goods.
Counterfeiting of goods does suck, but this does not seem to be the way to get people on your side...
As mentioned in TFA, Fox is planning to start a new business news channel, to compete with CNBC. Interesting that TFA makes no mention of her anticipated role in the new organization.
The man they hired to run the new news channel, Roger Ailes, also helped start CNBC.
The WSJ has an agreement with CNBC to provide content. The WSJ also just got bought by Rupert Murdoch's empire, which also owns Fox. Ailes says that there won't be a conflict.
Ailes also gives a lot more info here in this interview:
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB119160938630350371.html
Should be interesting.
... they might have an asset that was worth more.
I bought SkypeOut and one SkypeIn line for my business, costing about $25 for the year ($14 for a SkypeIn telno and $10 for Out calls and forwarding @ 2c/min). After some evaluation, my assessment was that it would be Good Enough(tm), and certainly better than paying Verizon's $80+ per month for another fixed line. I have not yet made a single Skype-Skype call.
The best asset of Skype for me is the architecture. My Skype service can be located wherever I am attached to the 'net at the moment. I can pick up the biz line at my home office or at the shop-office, or even most places when I am travelling. I can also use either my PC, laptop, or the handset/base station. I am really looking forward to the WiFi phones to be ready for prime time.
The quality has been generally acceptable, at least from here in the Northeast US. The main problems have been with DTMF, which fails about 5% of the time, and on calls forwarded to my cell phone, on which I have to call back almost half the time. Over the last 10 months that I've used it, both of these have gotten noticeably better. But this improvement isn't enough to completely commit as a biz user, or to completely drop my home phone line.
The big feature that is lacking is outgoing Caller ID. I often have to call customers and vendors on their cell phones, and most of them check CallerID first, so it is not good to show up as 'unknown' or '000-012-3456'. With good ID, and another significant step in quality, I'd switch to Skype for all land-line type services at home and biz.
I'd like to see eBay put in the investment for the next quality improvement, and for good CallerID. With that, I think they'd have a lot of people switching.
Of course, if they start trying to push adverts through the service, they can just watch everyone go away.