A lot would depend on the geometry of the antennas that they are using. Antennas have lobes where the reception is greatest and dead zones where you can't get anything. This fact is why we can use triangulation to locate radio sources. You use an antenna that has a big lobe surrounded by dead zones. If your antenna is pointing at the source you get a strong signal. If you steer it into the dead zone you get nothing. Now you have a heading to the source. With 2 stations, you can now triangulate to the actual location of the source.
So, if they use specialized antennas so the main lobes go out and down from the towers (most likely), then you probably won't receive much of a signal, if any.
Does anyone know if there are scientific instruments that are sensitive enough that they would have to be recalibrated for this change in gravitational field strength?
when you bug the guy in the next cube to break his concentration and look at your code
This is not an inspection. It is a desk check. A proper inspection, by Fagan standards, requires 1 hour of preparation for 100 lines of code. If they aren't noticing or looking at the "simple" stuff, then they are going to miss "real" mistakes. Also, you don't hold an inspection after you finish coding your stuff, you hold it after you have gone over the checklist created for "inspection ready". This may include things like: Proper formatting, clean compiles, passing unit test, checked for standards compliance, etc. If the inspectors notice that the code doesn't pass the inspection ready checklist during their preparation, the inspection is cancelled.
I agree with your first point. I used to work at Motorola as a Senior Software Engineer and during my time there we integrated a lint tool into our process. It didn't replace the formal inspection process, but before the inspection moderator would sign-off on the inspection, the developer had to show a clean lint report.
Now, lint tools aren't always right, so there were many places where we had to add comments in the code to get the tool to ignore the next lines. The important thing about the tool is it is "double checking" that you meant to do it that way. If you do, you add the ignore comment, and get to discuss it in an inspection. In this way it enhanced the inspection process instead of detracting from it.
Fortunately, I worked in an area where the quality of the code was considered important by the developers and management and if code wasn't ready, it didn't make it into the build. Simple as that. Of course, if you were going to miss the targeted build, management wanted to know why, but most of them would listen to you. (They might also ask you to work on the weekend to get it done...)
Now, replacing the mundane, manual inspections with tools is just stupid. Yes, in some places it can be done, but for the most part it is a horrible idea. Humans are better than software at inspecting code. Tools may be faster, but humans are better. Humans can catch mistakes like passing an incorrect variable or returning the wrong value. They can also examine any requirements or design documentation and determine if you are doing the correct thing. If nothing else, at least they are familiar with the overall application (or should be). Maybe you are making a window too big. It looks fine on your machine but there is a requirement that it works at 1024x768. You don't notice since you have a big monitor. The tool can't notice it since it doesn't read requirements documents. The requirement may not exist outside your memory of a short chat with the customer.
The reality is that software inspections SAVE time. No one believes it. Or, if they do, they forget about it because of "crunch time". Sorry. Unless you are coding trivial or simple applications it doesn't pay off. You can argue all you want that you can get around it, or there are better ways, but I don't believe you. I have seen the data from Michael Fagan's study at IBM, and inspections work. Motorola actually published the results of their switch to the Fagan Methodology and found that development time was reduced, fewer bugs were introduced and that more features could be added. After that, they made it company-wide policy to use the Fagan Method.
So why does this method work? Well, Fagan conducted over 11,000 inspections when he was at IBM to develop this methodology. It took a few years to conduct them all and analyze the results, but he found a great way to reduce bugs, cost and development time. So, unless you have the formal data to backup your claims, (anecdotal evidence doesn't count), I'll keep claiming that inspections are better. Proper inspections take preparation, focus and effor, but they make you better off.
The moon is a lot closer. Less time to support astronauts in flight (food, water, oxygen). Less radiation exposure. Less fuel required.
Lots of ice on Mars.
OK, I'll give you that one. However, what does it matter? If you have a sealed environment it isn't like the water is going on vacation. You can recycle it. You have to purify/filter it to make it potable again, but with all the nice solar energy you get on the moon (no atmosphere to get in your way) you could always distill it.
More gravity is a good thing too.
Why the hell is it a good thing? Less gravity means structures need less material than on Earth. Less gravity also makes it a lot easier to get back off the moon if you want to. Why claw your way out of Earth's gravity well, just to drop into Mars' gravity well? Less gravity also means it is easier to perform tasks with high mass objects. Why send a forklift when a human can lift 6x as much on the moon. Makes moving and handling construction materials that much easier. Climbing into craters or up mountains is also easier.
Something tells me that if the Earth were to suffer a major catastrophe a moon base would be doomed as well.
Why? Think there is something big enough to completely shatter the planet? As long as the mass is there, the moon will be just fine.
First, develop some kind of autonomous solar power development system. Let it work its magic for a couple decades. Maybe cover a thousand square miles with the cells. That should generate plenty of power for the first colonists.
This is easier on the moon since it doesn't have any atmosphere to block the solar energy and, more importantly, doesn't have wind storms that can cover/damage the cells with dust or sand.
Then send the first crew there with enough equipment to set up a base camp.
Any idea how much mass we are talking about?!? We aren't talking about a small rover, we are talking tons. Think about how expensive it has been to launch all of the components for the ISS. Now increase the launch cost by at least a factor of 5, since it is going to Mars and not just a few hundred miles up. Now increase the amount of material by a factor of 10 or so - unless you want just enough space for 2 or 3 people without any heavy tools to do any construction.
Once they establish the initial systems, go into full colonization mode. Start doing geological surveys to look for usable natural resources such as Methane or petroleum.
Sure, but why can't they do this on the moon as well?
Heck, in 50 years you could have something that might survive if the rest of the human population on Earth were to meet catastrophe. And this is with today's tech.
Yes, but it wouldn't be done with today's budget.
I mean, isn't that really the best reason to make an offworld base? To have some of our eggs diverge from the coordinates of our current basket?
Yes. However, the moon is also offworld. It may not be as suitable for life as Mars, but if you would die if your suit malfunctions, does it really matter if it would take a few extra seconds for you to die? You are still 100% reliant on your equipment. Terraforming Mars would solve that problem but would take decades (at least) if it is even possible.
Now, I know I've been negative about your idea, but I don't dislike the idea of trying for a base on Mars. I just think that trying for one before setting up a colony on the moon is like trying to run before you can even crawl. The moon is a lot easier to get to, cheaper to get to, provides an excellent location for future launches (low gravity), and will provide a lot of lessons for when we do decide to go to Mars.
Besides, if we start a Mars colony, we know they will find some sort of ancient ruins - the UAC will be sent to investigate these ruins, and we will be forced to fight an invasion of demons from another dimension. So, if we start a Mars colony, make sure you have a good chainsaw and shotgun, and hide your ammo in bathroom stalls and behind equipment so you can find it when you need it.
There is a "rule" in the security field: If someone has physical access to a machine, you cannot make it secure. Why? Someone could boot the machine with a Live CD and bypass any security that is in place. You could even install a rootkit. Even encryption doesn't help since the system has to know the key at some point, and with a rootkit, you have that key too. Now, before any discusses removing optical drives, or BIOS passwords, this is IT and they know how to install a drive and bypass the BIOS security. They could always pull the drive and drop it into a separate machine that isn't protected. There are lots of ways to make it harder, but you can't make it impossible.
That's why there is a push for trusted computing modules on "secure" systems. The key or unencrypted data only exists within that module, and can't be accessed from the outside. It doesn't solve the problem if the attacker has an unlimited amount of time, (they could tap into any connectors and view the raw data that way), but it makes it a lot harder. (Imagine soldering a few hundred connections...)
Personally, I would like to see an OS that is put onto a ROM and cannot be updated without pulling it and bringing it to a special machine. Sort of like a Windows XP cartridge or something. While much harder to update the OS, it also prevents rootkits or other malicious changes to the OS from being installed. When updates come out, you pull the cartridge, go to $ELECTRONICS_STORE, and plug it into their machine. After a few minutes, your updated OS is ready and you take your cartridge home.
If you are willing to lose a few days/weeks of data, you could use an external hard drive (or an internal drive with an external enclosure), and just store them at different locations. Visit your parents once a month? Drop off a drive and pick up the old one. You could also keep one in a safe deposit box and switch it out every few weeks. A 500GB external drive can be found for $350. Definitely not as convenient as the server solution I mentioned earlier, but less overhead, but more latency in the backup process.
OK. I think there are a lot of solutions that would work, and there are quite a few that people have mentioned.
I think the biggest issue for you to consider is how much security you want for your data. I don't just mean encrypted and properly administered, but also the likelihood that the company will be around for the next few years, and prices won't go through the roof.
Consider Carbonite. They claim unlimited storage for only $5/month, but I'm not sure how they plan to do this and maintain a profit. Just your data will require an entire hard drive, maybe more. Call it $150 to cover the drive(s) required. This means they can't afford a failure for 30 months, or they will lose money on your account. This ignores the cost for administrators, RAID and the actual hardware to drop the drives into. This would mean over 3 years without a failure just to break even on the hardware, let alone the bandwidth and admin costs. They may decide your business isn't worth it to them and cancel your account, putting you back at square one.
Now, for that amount of data, it can get pretty costly for some of the solutions. For 1TB, rsync.net will run about $700/month. I am assuming this is more than you want to pay, but I could be wrong.
Since you are specifically worried about a catastrophic onsite incident, you might want to consider setting up another server at home, and another at a trusted friend or relative's house. If you have a friend/relative that your trust, and is far enough away to avoid any natural disaster that hits your office, but close enough you can get there in case of a system failure, you may consider asking them to keep a server in their basement or attic. (Beware of flooing basements.) You could make a decent system for the cost of 2 months at rsync.net, so in 4 months you could have 2 completely redundant systems across a small geographic region.
You can sweeten the pot with your relatives by offering to pay for their Internet since they are hosting your server, and this will be a lot cheaper than online storage.
Since you already have a Linux box with RAID, I assume you have the ability to administer a couple of simple file servers. Using rsync gives you encrypted communication, and there are dozens of solutions out there for encrypting the files once they are on the server.
Without knowing more about the purpose of the cluster, it is a hard question to answer. The best place to post/look/advertise probably isn't one of the one-stop, post all your job sites. Try to determine what skillset is specifically required for your job and start looking at related sites.
Also, you might want to reconsider what you are looking for. If you really want a single "IT maven" to design and run the cluster, you are setting yourself up for failure. With that many machines, just swapping out failed hardware approaches a full-time job, so your maven better have a lot of good help.
While it is nice to think that businesses will just donate the money to the project, 99% of businesses want to know what the benefit to their bottom line is. There is an incentive to businesses to provide local wireless, as it draws people to their location. There is also incentive if they get some public recognition - think advertising. Yes, some do it for "goodwill" but I don't see that being as big a factor in a city like Boston, (as opposed to a smaller town), where there are a lot of businesses competing for the same goodwill. That means businesses are going to want to run their ads in return for their donations, making for an annoying wireless environment.
I think it would have been a great idea 7 years ago where companies were spending money on anything to do with tech, but I think will fail in today's economic climate.
Do you have any more information regarding your situation? For example, why does it have to be online storage? Is there a reason tape/optical/hard drive doesn't work for you? Also, how much data are we talking about? If it is hundreds of GB, then online may not be the best solution; the time to restore your data may be prohibitive. In line with that same question, what kind of bandwidth are we talking about? DSL is great for a couple of GB, but you need a lot more than that if you have a lot of data. Finally, how critical is this data? Is it a personal file server, or is it for a business? How long before downtime becomes an issue?
If time is critical, you might want to use tape or a spare hard drive and store it in a safe rated for digital media. If you need to restore, it can be a matter of minutes instead of hours or days. If you do daily backups of the entire server, you could just get a new machine, load the data, (or plug in the hard drive), and be back up in minutes. For absolutely critical files (financials, etc.) you could use online backup, and have all the non-critical backed-up locally.
So, if you can provide more information about your situation, the advice might be better.
While training courses or conferences that last a few days can be a nice break, I think the money and your time are best spent on something more formal.
I've attended training courses and spent a lot of money at Barnes & Noble, but I'm learning the most now that I'm in grad school. Graduate courses don't just give you specific information, or have you follow a manual to complete some hands-on training. (Or at least they shouldn't.) They should force you to research different topics in depth and, ideally, think about it. This is something you don't get from a 3-day training course. You can also get exposed to the theory behind the technology, so you can understand why it is used in some situations and not others, and can understand the trade-offs. There are always trade-offs.
I understand that you might not want to go back to school on a full-time basis, but there are a lot of real universities that offer real courses over the web, and they can lead to different certificates or graduate degree. For example, at Iowa State University, (Disclaimer: I am a Ph.D. student there), they have a good Engineering Distance Education program. Now, since you specificaly mentioned security responsibilities, there are 2 programs you might be interested in:
The Information Assurance Graduate Certificate link
Courses are offered over the web, lectures are streamed live and are available for download, and you can get DVDs of the lectures mailed to you. All of the courses are designed with off-campus students in mind, including a policy that off-campus homeworks are due 1-week after on-campus students so any DVDs that are sent have time to arrive. Also, if you talk to the professors when work issues come up, arrangements can be made.
Another nice point about working with a university is access to equipment and software that wouldn't otherwise be available - sometimes for weeks at a time. For example, in my Forensics class we got to use EnCase and FTK for our projects. In the Information Warfare class, we got to perform a break-in lab on a fake company network - sort of like you would do in an Ethical Hacking class - but we got several weeks to look for vulnerabilities. In a 3-day course you may get to use their software and equipment, but there is no time in the schedule for you to play around with it. When the class lasts a few months, there are a lot of opportunities for you to use it, just to use it.
Yes, taking the actual courses, with the actual tests, homeworks and projects can be a real pain - both in time and effort, but can also provide opportunities to learn a lot more overall.
With the current administration, and the general state of NASA funding, (and scientific funding in general), I doubt this project will ever work. Some "more pressing" project/war will come up and money for this project will be cut from the budget, and eventually the project will be cancelled.
I think that there would be a lot of valuable research, invention and innovation that would result from this program - if it would ever be completed. What I think we'll end up with, however, is a lot of half-finished ideas, and then the project will be scrapped due to lack of funding.
So, if the project were going to be carried through to completion, I think it would be very valuable in terms of research; but the project will be cancelled before then, so the money would be better spent on other scientific instruments that will eventually fly.
I agree with most you - I don't want to spend my time making MY machine work how I want it to. I get to do it at work, but I really like when I finish getting my machine set up how I want it and then leaving it alone. I view my personal machines as my tools and I want my tools to function properly, without a lot of hassle. When I buy a wrench, I don't want to spend a day tweaking it so it is the right size and shape for the task - I buy the correct wrench for the job and I get to use it right away. I enjoy having the same experience with my machines.
One reason I hate my Windows box is that it can't do everything I would like it to do - unless I shell out $$$ for applications that are mostly available as open source (or only need a bit of changing for my purpose). If these apps exist at all. But it is easy to use. So, to go back to the wrench analogy - Windows may not have a 7/8ths inch wrench available when I need one, but the available ones are all easy to use. In this way, Linux is better since it would have this 7/8ths inch wrench - and it would be available in 256 different finishes - you just have to configure the chrome layer properly. Harder to get the wrnech done properly, but you have the tool you need.
Howver, Mac is the best of both worlds - simple to use and with a lot of tools available. My next purchase will be a MacBook, (I don't need the extra graphics power in the MBP), and I can't wait to get my hands on it.
Even with the low video quality and the odd buffering issues it is still better than most of the shows that are on the networks right now. Actually, I'm listening to the commentary as I'm posting this and it's better than listening to College Football on the radio. Sure, that's just my opinion, but I can't stand most of the shows that play during prime time.
Give it a try. The worst that can happen is you waste a few minutes of your time. Better than watching another episode of Survivor: New Jersey or Big Brother 65.
It might be used for custom button mappings. A nice feature of PC games is that you can have customer key mappings. This might allow the controller to provide those features, eliminating the need for each game to do so.
From TFA: In May, researchers at the University of Tel Aviv created a skimmer from electronics hobbyist kits costing less than $110. The equipment was small enough to fit into a briefcase or be disguised in any manner of luggage or clothes that could hide the 15-inch copper tube antenna.
So their antenna is 15-inches. From this brief description, it seems they tried it in a briefcase, so the material of the briefcase was an obstacle. Having the target moving at walking pace is negligible. A range of a few feet takes 1-2 seconds to travel, and RFID powers up and sends data much faster than that. As for a power source... My cell phone can send radio signals several miles, through concrete walls with a small battery. This is on the same order of power. In fact, there are cell phones that come with RFID readers.
If you are really wondering if it is a real-world threat, keep in mind that researchers are doing "walk-by" readings all the time - others are building devices that read from much farther away. Just look up some of the research. A device doesn't need to be small if I can fit it in the back of a van and drive by an airport - all those doors and glass aren't a big obstacle to the radio waves.
Where I used to work it was pretty normal for people to come in early (about 7:00AM), take an extra long lunch (1.5 - 2 hours) and then work until 5:00PM. They put in their 8 or 9 hours, but have a nice refreshing break in the middle so they can handle the afternoon. Also, people would go to the gym at lunch time to refresh their minds for the afternoon.
Another tactic was for people to come in late, about 10:00AM, go to lunch at 12:00PM for an hour, work the afternoon, go home for an hour or two to eat supper, and work a few more hours from home. Some would also come back to the office for a few hours in the evening - but they generally lived pretty close-by. After work, they could go out, stay out late, but be able to sleep in the next morning.
I think the important part is determining how long you can go without a serious break, and then figuring out how to work that break into your schedule. It may mean starting earlier, or working later, but you still get your time off. Why go to the gym in the morning, when you can go at lunch time and refresh yourself for the afternoon?
This apparant discrepancy stems from the fact that not everyone on the planet has an email address.
We can solve for the assumed number of email accounts in use by:
50 billion emails sent = 32 emails received * number of email accounts to receive them
50 billion emails sent / 32 emails received = 1.56 billion email accounts to receive them
According to the this page with World Internet Usage Stats, the number of people online is: 1,022,863,307. Meaning that the average person has 1.5 email accounts. True, some have a lot more email accounts, but there are also a lot of people who only have the one their ISP provides them. While I won't say these are the correct numbers, they are certainly in the ballpark.
Well, after Googling for "Iowa State Salaries", I found this page from the Des Moines Register that lists the salaries of all employees for the State of Iowa, including professors at the public colleges.
The interface isn't the greatest, but you can find out a lot of information about salaries. You'll find that coaches are the highest paid state employees followed by the professors at the medical school (M.D.s) and university presidents. You have to go fairly far down the list to find professors from computer science. The department chair for CS makes US$142,667 with US$3,245.88 in travel assistance for the year.
If you had RTFA, you would have discovered that the range increases to a couple feet. I'm sure when you are standing in line at the airport you noticed all of the people who are walking past carrying briefcases or even larger pieces of luggage.
All you would have to do is walk into the airport at one end with your big rolling suitcase, walk past all the people standing in lines and walk-out the other end of the concourse. Sure, you didn't get everyone's information, but you got information from several hundred passengers.
Since you have an RFID card, I assume it is for work. How often do you carry it when you go out for lunch? Do you always notice the people in the booth/at the table next to you and what they are carrying? When I worked at a large corporation I could go to any of the nearby restaurants and find dozens of employees, with their badges on, all with access to the buildings. If I wanted, I could walk to my table, read a few badges, eat, encode an RFID chip and enter the restricted buildings that afternoon.
RFID cards are a nice convenience, but security-wise they are horrible. I would only use them if all communications are encrypted and it required two-way authentication. Much easier to issue a card with a magnetic strip that also requires a PIN. Even without a PIN, at least it can't be read without physical access to the card.
Have you heard of directional antennas? What about antenna arrays?
These are techniques that don't require "breaking" the laws of physics. They involve sneaky humans looking for ways around them. The Voyager spacecrafts send signals that can be detected billions of miles away. It takes several large antennas to detect the signal, but it can be read from that far away.
So, before you whip out your laws of physics, why don't you read about how we have worked around them. If you had bothered to read TFA, you would have noticed this bit:
In 2005, a researcher at Cambridge extended the range to about 160 feet while successfully accessing a contactless smart card's details.
Or does Cambridge exist in a different space-time continuum?
At a very rough guess, I'd say that between the two of us, we could produce a text at least 20-30 (maybe 40) volumes long on what a security expert would need to know. Dunno how much you could add, but I could certainly manage the chapter titles and maybe even a little of the content we've listed so far.
Actually, I think this is the wrong approach. I think that a security expert only needs to read 3 or 4 volumes in their specific field. The idea that a single person can be a master of all areas of security is outdated and dangerous. To have good security you need an entire team that works well together. This means people who focus on the big picture such as overall network design, security policies, physical security, etc. Then you need people who are experts in the respective fields to implement them properly. Locksmiths/physical security companies to determine the locking systems that you require, and install them properly. Application administrators that can properly install and configure the enterprise level applicationss that you need. System/network administrators to get the systems connected and running properly. A forensic specialist(s) to handle the systems properly in the case of a break-in or other problem. Auditors for making sure things are done correctly. Lawyers. Accountants. Training staff. The list goes on.
Sometimes it is the small things that people miss that can make the big difference. For example, a lot of people store "secret" company information in the overhead bins of their cubicals. Sure they lock, but most also lift off the cubical wall and allow access from the back. Most "security experts" would overlook that point. A physical security expert won't.
This is why a lot of corporations hire outside companies to handle a lot of this work. A lot of it needs to be done once (such as facility security) or only periodically, such as an audit. So you hire an outside firm specializing in those areas to perform those activities.
So, as I said, each expert needs to read a few volumes that are in their specific area and stop pretending to know it all.
Try reading "Masters of Doom" by David Kushner. It has several chapters on what was occuring at Id when they were developing Doom. Specifically, it mentions that Romero hated the direction that Doom was taking and, in a marathon level-development session, created the levels that served as the basis for the Doom game. Before he did that they were heading down a "dull" military complex design idea that didn't reach out and grab anyone.
Not gonna happen. The reason is that your lament is millennia old. Seriously. There are writings from ancient Greece and Rome that read exactly like the cranky old man of today, who decries the awful state of the youth "these days".
This is a horrible argument. Why? The people who wrote those statements were noticing the slow start of the collapse of their societies. Have you noticed that the Greek Empire fell? Or that the Roman Emipire fell? Or that there are many other societies where generations worked hard to build up what future generations squandered and lost due to their complacency? Just because we, (humanity in general), have advanced over those millennia, doesn't mean there weren't societies that rose and fell in that time period, or that there weren't centuries where civilization took turns for the worse.
The whole point of studying history is to avoid the mistakes that were made in the past. However, we know that when a society become too rich, too powerful and too comfortable, they stop doing those things that helped make their society great. For example, Rome hired "barbarians" to be in their legions because the Romans themselves didn't want to be bothered. It must have been a real shock when "barbarians" actually managed to sack Rome.
I think the same thing is happening in the US and other countries. No one wants to work hard and do the dirty or demeaning jobs for a chance to move up. Yes, there is the "American Dream" where someone starts out with nothing and makes it to the top. However, people conveniently forget that the full story is when someone starts out with nothing, works hard, and makes it to the top.
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A lot would depend on the geometry of the antennas that they are using. Antennas have lobes where the reception is greatest and dead zones where you can't get anything. This fact is why we can use triangulation to locate radio sources. You use an antenna that has a big lobe surrounded by dead zones. If your antenna is pointing at the source you get a strong signal. If you steer it into the dead zone you get nothing. Now you have a heading to the source. With 2 stations, you can now triangulate to the actual location of the source.
So, if they use specialized antennas so the main lobes go out and down from the towers (most likely), then you probably won't receive much of a signal, if any.
Does anyone know if there are scientific instruments that are sensitive enough that they would have to be recalibrated for this change in gravitational field strength?
when you bug the guy in the next cube to break his concentration and look at your code
This is not an inspection. It is a desk check. A proper inspection, by Fagan standards, requires 1 hour of preparation for 100 lines of code. If they aren't noticing or looking at the "simple" stuff, then they are going to miss "real" mistakes. Also, you don't hold an inspection after you finish coding your stuff, you hold it after you have gone over the checklist created for "inspection ready". This may include things like: Proper formatting, clean compiles, passing unit test, checked for standards compliance, etc. If the inspectors notice that the code doesn't pass the inspection ready checklist during their preparation, the inspection is cancelled.
I agree with your first point. I used to work at Motorola as a Senior Software Engineer and during my time there we integrated a lint tool into our process. It didn't replace the formal inspection process, but before the inspection moderator would sign-off on the inspection, the developer had to show a clean lint report.
Now, lint tools aren't always right, so there were many places where we had to add comments in the code to get the tool to ignore the next lines. The important thing about the tool is it is "double checking" that you meant to do it that way. If you do, you add the ignore comment, and get to discuss it in an inspection. In this way it enhanced the inspection process instead of detracting from it.
Fortunately, I worked in an area where the quality of the code was considered important by the developers and management and if code wasn't ready, it didn't make it into the build. Simple as that. Of course, if you were going to miss the targeted build, management wanted to know why, but most of them would listen to you. (They might also ask you to work on the weekend to get it done...)
Now, replacing the mundane, manual inspections with tools is just stupid. Yes, in some places it can be done, but for the most part it is a horrible idea. Humans are better than software at inspecting code. Tools may be faster, but humans are better. Humans can catch mistakes like passing an incorrect variable or returning the wrong value. They can also examine any requirements or design documentation and determine if you are doing the correct thing. If nothing else, at least they are familiar with the overall application (or should be). Maybe you are making a window too big. It looks fine on your machine but there is a requirement that it works at 1024x768. You don't notice since you have a big monitor. The tool can't notice it since it doesn't read requirements documents. The requirement may not exist outside your memory of a short chat with the customer.
The reality is that software inspections SAVE time. No one believes it. Or, if they do, they forget about it because of "crunch time". Sorry. Unless you are coding trivial or simple applications it doesn't pay off. You can argue all you want that you can get around it, or there are better ways, but I don't believe you. I have seen the data from Michael Fagan's study at IBM, and inspections work. Motorola actually published the results of their switch to the Fagan Methodology and found that development time was reduced, fewer bugs were introduced and that more features could be added. After that, they made it company-wide policy to use the Fagan Method.
So why does this method work? Well, Fagan conducted over 11,000 inspections when he was at IBM to develop this methodology. It took a few years to conduct them all and analyze the results, but he found a great way to reduce bugs, cost and development time. So, unless you have the formal data to backup your claims, (anecdotal evidence doesn't count), I'll keep claiming that inspections are better. Proper inspections take preparation, focus and effor, but they make you better off.
You kidding, right?
Why not choose Mars instead?
The moon is a lot closer. Less time to support astronauts in flight (food, water, oxygen). Less radiation exposure. Less fuel required.
Lots of ice on Mars.
OK, I'll give you that one. However, what does it matter? If you have a sealed environment it isn't like the water is going on vacation. You can recycle it. You have to purify/filter it to make it potable again, but with all the nice solar energy you get on the moon (no atmosphere to get in your way) you could always distill it.
More gravity is a good thing too.
Why the hell is it a good thing? Less gravity means structures need less material than on Earth. Less gravity also makes it a lot easier to get back off the moon if you want to. Why claw your way out of Earth's gravity well, just to drop into Mars' gravity well? Less gravity also means it is easier to perform tasks with high mass objects. Why send a forklift when a human can lift 6x as much on the moon. Makes moving and handling construction materials that much easier. Climbing into craters or up mountains is also easier.
Something tells me that if the Earth were to suffer a major catastrophe a moon base would be doomed as well.
Why? Think there is something big enough to completely shatter the planet? As long as the mass is there, the moon will be just fine.
First, develop some kind of autonomous solar power development system. Let it work its magic for a couple decades. Maybe cover a thousand square miles with the cells. That should generate plenty of power for the first colonists.
This is easier on the moon since it doesn't have any atmosphere to block the solar energy and, more importantly, doesn't have wind storms that can cover/damage the cells with dust or sand.
Then send the first crew there with enough equipment to set up a base camp.
Any idea how much mass we are talking about?!? We aren't talking about a small rover, we are talking tons. Think about how expensive it has been to launch all of the components for the ISS. Now increase the launch cost by at least a factor of 5, since it is going to Mars and not just a few hundred miles up. Now increase the amount of material by a factor of 10 or so - unless you want just enough space for 2 or 3 people without any heavy tools to do any construction.
Once they establish the initial systems, go into full colonization mode. Start doing geological surveys to look for usable natural resources such as Methane or petroleum.
Sure, but why can't they do this on the moon as well?
Heck, in 50 years you could have something that might survive if the rest of the human population on Earth were to meet catastrophe. And this is with today's tech.
Yes, but it wouldn't be done with today's budget.
I mean, isn't that really the best reason to make an offworld base? To have some of our eggs diverge from the coordinates of our current basket?
Yes. However, the moon is also offworld. It may not be as suitable for life as Mars, but if you would die if your suit malfunctions, does it really matter if it would take a few extra seconds for you to die? You are still 100% reliant on your equipment. Terraforming Mars would solve that problem but would take decades (at least) if it is even possible.
Now, I know I've been negative about your idea, but I don't dislike the idea of trying for a base on Mars. I just think that trying for one before setting up a colony on the moon is like trying to run before you can even crawl. The moon is a lot easier to get to, cheaper to get to, provides an excellent location for future launches (low gravity), and will provide a lot of lessons for when we do decide to go to Mars.
Besides, if we start a Mars colony, we know they will find some sort of ancient ruins - the UAC will be sent to investigate these ruins, and we will be forced to fight an invasion of demons from another dimension. So, if we start a Mars colony, make sure you have a good chainsaw and shotgun, and hide your ammo in bathroom stalls and behind equipment so you can find it when you need it.
Exactly.
There is a "rule" in the security field: If someone has physical access to a machine, you cannot make it secure. Why? Someone could boot the machine with a Live CD and bypass any security that is in place. You could even install a rootkit. Even encryption doesn't help since the system has to know the key at some point, and with a rootkit, you have that key too. Now, before any discusses removing optical drives, or BIOS passwords, this is IT and they know how to install a drive and bypass the BIOS security. They could always pull the drive and drop it into a separate machine that isn't protected. There are lots of ways to make it harder, but you can't make it impossible.
That's why there is a push for trusted computing modules on "secure" systems. The key or unencrypted data only exists within that module, and can't be accessed from the outside. It doesn't solve the problem if the attacker has an unlimited amount of time, (they could tap into any connectors and view the raw data that way), but it makes it a lot harder. (Imagine soldering a few hundred connections...)
Personally, I would like to see an OS that is put onto a ROM and cannot be updated without pulling it and bringing it to a special machine. Sort of like a Windows XP cartridge or something. While much harder to update the OS, it also prevents rootkits or other malicious changes to the OS from being installed. When updates come out, you pull the cartridge, go to $ELECTRONICS_STORE, and plug it into their machine. After a few minutes, your updated OS is ready and you take your cartridge home.
If you are willing to lose a few days/weeks of data, you could use an external hard drive (or an internal drive with an external enclosure), and just store them at different locations. Visit your parents once a month? Drop off a drive and pick up the old one. You could also keep one in a safe deposit box and switch it out every few weeks. A 500GB external drive can be found for $350. Definitely not as convenient as the server solution I mentioned earlier, but less overhead, but more latency in the backup process.
Trade-offs. It's always the trade-offs.
OK. I think there are a lot of solutions that would work, and there are quite a few that people have mentioned.
I think the biggest issue for you to consider is how much security you want for your data. I don't just mean encrypted and properly administered, but also the likelihood that the company will be around for the next few years, and prices won't go through the roof.
Consider Carbonite. They claim unlimited storage for only $5/month, but I'm not sure how they plan to do this and maintain a profit. Just your data will require an entire hard drive, maybe more. Call it $150 to cover the drive(s) required. This means they can't afford a failure for 30 months, or they will lose money on your account. This ignores the cost for administrators, RAID and the actual hardware to drop the drives into. This would mean over 3 years without a failure just to break even on the hardware, let alone the bandwidth and admin costs. They may decide your business isn't worth it to them and cancel your account, putting you back at square one.
Now, for that amount of data, it can get pretty costly for some of the solutions. For 1TB, rsync.net will run about $700/month. I am assuming this is more than you want to pay, but I could be wrong.
Since you are specifically worried about a catastrophic onsite incident, you might want to consider setting up another server at home, and another at a trusted friend or relative's house. If you have a friend/relative that your trust, and is far enough away to avoid any natural disaster that hits your office, but close enough you can get there in case of a system failure, you may consider asking them to keep a server in their basement or attic. (Beware of flooing basements.) You could make a decent system for the cost of 2 months at rsync.net, so in 4 months you could have 2 completely redundant systems across a small geographic region.
You can sweeten the pot with your relatives by offering to pay for their Internet since they are hosting your server, and this will be a lot cheaper than online storage.
Since you already have a Linux box with RAID, I assume you have the ability to administer a couple of simple file servers. Using rsync gives you encrypted communication, and there are dozens of solutions out there for encrypting the files once they are on the server.
Without knowing more about the purpose of the cluster, it is a hard question to answer. The best place to post/look/advertise probably isn't one of the one-stop, post all your job sites. Try to determine what skillset is specifically required for your job and start looking at related sites.
Also, you might want to reconsider what you are looking for. If you really want a single "IT maven" to design and run the cluster, you are setting yourself up for failure. With that many machines, just swapping out failed hardware approaches a full-time job, so your maven better have a lot of good help.
What's in it for business?
While it is nice to think that businesses will just donate the money to the project, 99% of businesses want to know what the benefit to their bottom line is. There is an incentive to businesses to provide local wireless, as it draws people to their location. There is also incentive if they get some public recognition - think advertising. Yes, some do it for "goodwill" but I don't see that being as big a factor in a city like Boston, (as opposed to a smaller town), where there are a lot of businesses competing for the same goodwill. That means businesses are going to want to run their ads in return for their donations, making for an annoying wireless environment.
I think it would have been a great idea 7 years ago where companies were spending money on anything to do with tech, but I think will fail in today's economic climate.
Do you have any more information regarding your situation? For example, why does it have to be online storage? Is there a reason tape/optical/hard drive doesn't work for you? Also, how much data are we talking about? If it is hundreds of GB, then online may not be the best solution; the time to restore your data may be prohibitive. In line with that same question, what kind of bandwidth are we talking about? DSL is great for a couple of GB, but you need a lot more than that if you have a lot of data. Finally, how critical is this data? Is it a personal file server, or is it for a business? How long before downtime becomes an issue?
If time is critical, you might want to use tape or a spare hard drive and store it in a safe rated for digital media. If you need to restore, it can be a matter of minutes instead of hours or days. If you do daily backups of the entire server, you could just get a new machine, load the data, (or plug in the hard drive), and be back up in minutes. For absolutely critical files (financials, etc.) you could use online backup, and have all the non-critical backed-up locally.
So, if you can provide more information about your situation, the advice might be better.
I've attended training courses and spent a lot of money at Barnes & Noble, but I'm learning the most now that I'm in grad school. Graduate courses don't just give you specific information, or have you follow a manual to complete some hands-on training. (Or at least they shouldn't.) They should force you to research different topics in depth and, ideally, think about it. This is something you don't get from a 3-day training course. You can also get exposed to the theory behind the technology, so you can understand why it is used in some situations and not others, and can understand the trade-offs. There are always trade-offs.
I understand that you might not want to go back to school on a full-time basis, but there are a lot of real universities that offer real courses over the web, and they can lead to different certificates or graduate degree. For example, at Iowa State University, (Disclaimer: I am a Ph.D. student there), they have a good Engineering Distance Education program. Now, since you specificaly mentioned security responsibilities, there are 2 programs you might be interested in:
The Information Assurance Graduate Certificate link
Masters of Science in Information Assurance link
Courses are offered over the web, lectures are streamed live and are available for download, and you can get DVDs of the lectures mailed to you. All of the courses are designed with off-campus students in mind, including a policy that off-campus homeworks are due 1-week after on-campus students so any DVDs that are sent have time to arrive. Also, if you talk to the professors when work issues come up, arrangements can be made.
Another nice point about working with a university is access to equipment and software that wouldn't otherwise be available - sometimes for weeks at a time. For example, in my Forensics class we got to use EnCase and FTK for our projects. In the Information Warfare class, we got to perform a break-in lab on a fake company network - sort of like you would do in an Ethical Hacking class - but we got several weeks to look for vulnerabilities. In a 3-day course you may get to use their software and equipment, but there is no time in the schedule for you to play around with it. When the class lasts a few months, there are a lot of opportunities for you to use it, just to use it.
Yes, taking the actual courses, with the actual tests, homeworks and projects can be a real pain - both in time and effort, but can also provide opportunities to learn a lot more overall.
I agree with you, but for different reasons...
With the current administration, and the general state of NASA funding, (and scientific funding in general), I doubt this project will ever work. Some "more pressing" project/war will come up and money for this project will be cut from the budget, and eventually the project will be cancelled.
I think that there would be a lot of valuable research, invention and innovation that would result from this program - if it would ever be completed. What I think we'll end up with, however, is a lot of half-finished ideas, and then the project will be scrapped due to lack of funding.
So, if the project were going to be carried through to completion, I think it would be very valuable in terms of research; but the project will be cancelled before then, so the money would be better spent on other scientific instruments that will eventually fly.
I agree with most you - I don't want to spend my time making MY machine work how I want it to. I get to do it at work, but I really like when I finish getting my machine set up how I want it and then leaving it alone. I view my personal machines as my tools and I want my tools to function properly, without a lot of hassle. When I buy a wrench, I don't want to spend a day tweaking it so it is the right size and shape for the task - I buy the correct wrench for the job and I get to use it right away. I enjoy having the same experience with my machines.
One reason I hate my Windows box is that it can't do everything I would like it to do - unless I shell out $$$ for applications that are mostly available as open source (or only need a bit of changing for my purpose). If these apps exist at all. But it is easy to use. So, to go back to the wrench analogy - Windows may not have a 7/8ths inch wrench available when I need one, but the available ones are all easy to use. In this way, Linux is better since it would have this 7/8ths inch wrench - and it would be available in 256 different finishes - you just have to configure the chrome layer properly. Harder to get the wrnech done properly, but you have the tool you need.
Howver, Mac is the best of both worlds - simple to use and with a lot of tools available. My next purchase will be a MacBook, (I don't need the extra graphics power in the MBP), and I can't wait to get my hands on it.
Even with the low video quality and the odd buffering issues it is still better than most of the shows that are on the networks right now. Actually, I'm listening to the commentary as I'm posting this and it's better than listening to College Football on the radio. Sure, that's just my opinion, but I can't stand most of the shows that play during prime time.
Give it a try. The worst that can happen is you waste a few minutes of your time. Better than watching another episode of Survivor: New Jersey or Big Brother 65.
It might be used for custom button mappings. A nice feature of PC games is that you can have customer key mappings. This might allow the controller to provide those features, eliminating the need for each game to do so.
From TFA:
In May, researchers at the University of Tel Aviv created a skimmer from electronics hobbyist kits costing less than $110. The equipment was small enough to fit into a briefcase or be disguised in any manner of luggage or clothes that could hide the 15-inch copper tube antenna.
So their antenna is 15-inches. From this brief description, it seems they tried it in a briefcase, so the material of the briefcase was an obstacle. Having the target moving at walking pace is negligible. A range of a few feet takes 1-2 seconds to travel, and RFID powers up and sends data much faster than that. As for a power source... My cell phone can send radio signals several miles, through concrete walls with a small battery. This is on the same order of power. In fact, there are cell phones that come with RFID readers.
If you are really wondering if it is a real-world threat, keep in mind that researchers are doing "walk-by" readings all the time - others are building devices that read from much farther away. Just look up some of the research. A device doesn't need to be small if I can fit it in the back of a van and drive by an airport - all those doors and glass aren't a big obstacle to the radio waves.
Where I used to work it was pretty normal for people to come in early (about 7:00AM), take an extra long lunch (1.5 - 2 hours) and then work until 5:00PM. They put in their 8 or 9 hours, but have a nice refreshing break in the middle so they can handle the afternoon. Also, people would go to the gym at lunch time to refresh their minds for the afternoon.
Another tactic was for people to come in late, about 10:00AM, go to lunch at 12:00PM for an hour, work the afternoon, go home for an hour or two to eat supper, and work a few more hours from home. Some would also come back to the office for a few hours in the evening - but they generally lived pretty close-by. After work, they could go out, stay out late, but be able to sleep in the next morning.
I think the important part is determining how long you can go without a serious break, and then figuring out how to work that break into your schedule. It may mean starting earlier, or working later, but you still get your time off. Why go to the gym in the morning, when you can go at lunch time and refresh yourself for the afternoon?
This apparant discrepancy stems from the fact that not everyone on the planet has an email address.
We can solve for the assumed number of email accounts in use by:
50 billion emails sent = 32 emails received * number of email accounts to receive them
50 billion emails sent / 32 emails received = 1.56 billion email accounts to receive them
According to the this page with World Internet Usage Stats, the number of people online is: 1,022,863,307. Meaning that the average person has 1.5 email accounts. True, some have a lot more email accounts, but there are also a lot of people who only have the one their ISP provides them. While I won't say these are the correct numbers, they are certainly in the ballpark.
Well, after Googling for "Iowa State Salaries", I found this page from the Des Moines Register that lists the salaries of all employees for the State of Iowa, including professors at the public colleges.
The interface isn't the greatest, but you can find out a lot of information about salaries. You'll find that coaches are the highest paid state employees followed by the professors at the medical school (M.D.s) and university presidents. You have to go fairly far down the list to find professors from computer science. The department chair for CS makes US$142,667 with US$3,245.88 in travel assistance for the year.
If you had RTFA, you would have discovered that the range increases to a couple feet. I'm sure when you are standing in line at the airport you noticed all of the people who are walking past carrying briefcases or even larger pieces of luggage.
All you would have to do is walk into the airport at one end with your big rolling suitcase, walk past all the people standing in lines and walk-out the other end of the concourse. Sure, you didn't get everyone's information, but you got information from several hundred passengers.
Since you have an RFID card, I assume it is for work. How often do you carry it when you go out for lunch? Do you always notice the people in the booth/at the table next to you and what they are carrying? When I worked at a large corporation I could go to any of the nearby restaurants and find dozens of employees, with their badges on, all with access to the buildings. If I wanted, I could walk to my table, read a few badges, eat, encode an RFID chip and enter the restricted buildings that afternoon.
RFID cards are a nice convenience, but security-wise they are horrible. I would only use them if all communications are encrypted and it required two-way authentication. Much easier to issue a card with a magnetic strip that also requires a PIN. Even without a PIN, at least it can't be read without physical access to the card.
Have you heard of directional antennas? What about antenna arrays?
These are techniques that don't require "breaking" the laws of physics. They involve sneaky humans looking for ways around them. The Voyager spacecrafts send signals that can be detected billions of miles away. It takes several large antennas to detect the signal, but it can be read from that far away.
So, before you whip out your laws of physics, why don't you read about how we have worked around them. If you had bothered to read TFA, you would have noticed this bit:
In 2005, a researcher at Cambridge extended the range to about 160 feet while successfully accessing a contactless smart card's details.
Or does Cambridge exist in a different space-time continuum?
At a very rough guess, I'd say that between the two of us, we could produce a text at least 20-30 (maybe 40) volumes long on what a security expert would need to know. Dunno how much you could add, but I could certainly manage the chapter titles and maybe even a little of the content we've listed so far.
Actually, I think this is the wrong approach. I think that a security expert only needs to read 3 or 4 volumes in their specific field. The idea that a single person can be a master of all areas of security is outdated and dangerous. To have good security you need an entire team that works well together. This means people who focus on the big picture such as overall network design, security policies, physical security, etc. Then you need people who are experts in the respective fields to implement them properly. Locksmiths/physical security companies to determine the locking systems that you require, and install them properly. Application administrators that can properly install and configure the enterprise level applicationss that you need. System/network administrators to get the systems connected and running properly. A forensic specialist(s) to handle the systems properly in the case of a break-in or other problem. Auditors for making sure things are done correctly. Lawyers. Accountants. Training staff. The list goes on.
Sometimes it is the small things that people miss that can make the big difference. For example, a lot of people store "secret" company information in the overhead bins of their cubicals. Sure they lock, but most also lift off the cubical wall and allow access from the back. Most "security experts" would overlook that point. A physical security expert won't.
This is why a lot of corporations hire outside companies to handle a lot of this work. A lot of it needs to be done once (such as facility security) or only periodically, such as an audit. So you hire an outside firm specializing in those areas to perform those activities.
So, as I said, each expert needs to read a few volumes that are in their specific area and stop pretending to know it all.
Try reading "Masters of Doom" by David Kushner. It has several chapters on what was occuring at Id when they were developing Doom. Specifically, it mentions that Romero hated the direction that Doom was taking and, in a marathon level-development session, created the levels that served as the basis for the Doom game. Before he did that they were heading down a "dull" military complex design idea that didn't reach out and grab anyone.
Not gonna happen. The reason is that your lament is millennia old. Seriously. There are writings from ancient Greece and Rome that read exactly like the cranky old man of today, who decries the awful state of the youth "these days".
This is a horrible argument. Why? The people who wrote those statements were noticing the slow start of the collapse of their societies. Have you noticed that the Greek Empire fell? Or that the Roman Emipire fell? Or that there are many other societies where generations worked hard to build up what future generations squandered and lost due to their complacency? Just because we, (humanity in general), have advanced over those millennia, doesn't mean there weren't societies that rose and fell in that time period, or that there weren't centuries where civilization took turns for the worse.
The whole point of studying history is to avoid the mistakes that were made in the past. However, we know that when a society become too rich, too powerful and too comfortable, they stop doing those things that helped make their society great. For example, Rome hired "barbarians" to be in their legions because the Romans themselves didn't want to be bothered. It must have been a real shock when "barbarians" actually managed to sack Rome.
I think the same thing is happening in the US and other countries. No one wants to work hard and do the dirty or demeaning jobs for a chance to move up. Yes, there is the "American Dream" where someone starts out with nothing and makes it to the top. However, people conveniently forget that the full story is when someone starts out with nothing, works hard, and makes it to the top.