I forgot one other strategy that is usually rather easy to implement & often popular: 1st & 2nd rate email addresses:
First-rate addresses are a person's primary address, used for "official" business, high-priority contacts. One's address might be "jrandomuser_direct@mycorphq.com" Of course mycorphq.com is only a mail-server, everything else is redirected to the traditionial address. Thus it's clearly a real address but different enough not to be trivially guessed / forged.
Second-rate addresses are used for mailing lists, NYT-signups, buying via Amazon, given out to buddies, used for generic stuff. One's address for these is usually a plausable but different address then the primary one, "jrandomuser@mycorp.com". This address is easily discovered but peers know it's not your primary address, material from it is suspect.
The advantage of this is that folks can use it to pre-sort what kind of mail they're likely to get and how important what they're sending / using is. Sales-sheet to a customer: first-class. Latest pass-around-joke: second-class. Memo to whomever: first-class. Registration for/.: second-class.
we're not concerned about powered network drops (for our unclassified net at least) to unused offices in my building because I work in a secured government facility protected by guards, gates & guns.
I don't know about your facility but most of the "secure" ones I know do have guests and such come within them. I can't imagine it would be too hard to create a plausable reason to have a meeting, get into some 'secured' part of the building & pop in a wireless repeater. As I noted conference rooms with live drops are great places to leave something plugged in, or better yet an empty office with a device popped behind the trash bin, broadcasting away.
Firewalls, armed guards & such are great to keep folks out without a reason to be inside. The concern is that if a person can generate a reason to be inside they can find a weakness. The Trojans learned this with a horse, but it could just as well be a salesdroid, "reporter" or other guest. Leaving ports live unnecessarily is not a prudent practice.
Social Engineering is effective because it starts with the folks most often overlooked - the front line.
Clear company policies need to be set up regarding what information is divulged & how. This is of interest not only to IS but to HR (keeping away poachers) and to individuals (stalkers, toner salesmen.)
Some basic strategies I've used are:
The switchboard never gives out direct lines numbers. If someone needs a direct number the person can give it himself or herself.
All staff is requested not to give out information regarding other employees. All such calls or emails are to be referred to HR. There calls are then screened, phone numbers are taken and callbacks used. Generally only a message is taken and passed along.
Generic accounts are set up for key positions on voicemail & email. Callers requesting the name or contact information for unspecified folks (job titles) are referred to these generic accounts where an AA can sift through them later.
Functional addresses & numbers are used where possible. Not only do these maintain privacy & security they also facilitate job turnover/movement (outsiders don't play chase only to discover the person has either left the company or moved to a different position, is no longer who they want.)
"Out of Office" auto responses are not allowed to propagate outside of the business if allowed at all. They are specifically flagged at creation and blocked at the company's outbound servers.
Identifying information is stripped from client-applications. This includes web-browsers not giving out names or other non-relevant information.
The corporate phone & email directories are not allowed to be visible outside of the company. Furthermore their printing or copying is discouraged, made difficult.
Laptops are heavily secured as they can provide invaluable information on a company's internals. This means using encrypted file systems, etc.
Support & security folks have access to up-to-the-moment company directories that indicate a employee & contractor's names and where they fit in the org chart. Outside calls requesting possibly sensitive information from folks not known personally to the support person are conference-called to someone knowing them to verify their identity. If in doubt a callback is arranged and some method of determining their identity is found even if it means their describing what's in their top left desk drawer.
Security is encouraged to be vigilant and backed up! Refusing access, even to a VIP or someone with a good story is respected and the employee commended if the refusal was warranted (doubt is in their favor.)
Paper-shredders are made availaible and easy-to-use. In cases of bulk-shreddings special bins (recycling bins sprayed an ugly color) can be used & the shredding will be done by someone else.
Outside trash containers are not hidden behind the building but in a secured and/or visible location. If necc. some sort of beautification can be undertaken but putting them where activity will be noted is important, more important then hiding them.
Outside access to company resources is heavily controlled. Some possible common-sense measures include not making VPN's full peers on the network but filtering them from sensitive areas, no use of direct-inbound-dialing-to-computers (PC-Anywhere etc.) Furthermore 'unreasonable' hours should be implemented; there's rarely a pressing need to work remotely at 4am even if one employee might want to do so once a month, it's not worth the hazards.
"Public" & unused parts of all facilities should not have live network drops without a specific need & their being kept in visible places. Network drops in unused parts of facilities are deactivated from the closet. Large-areas that are unused are completely deactivated. This means no drops behind the couch in the lobby and no working drops in the empty offices/floors.
Settings given to outsiders within the company (folks using conference rooms etc.) should be filtered to give only limited access. The handy how-to-get-on-our-network sheets posted on the walls of these rooms *only* give information to 'guest' settings.
"Honeypot"-like devices should be placed within the company firewall & monitored. SNMP, network scans or the like traffic should be flagged and correlated with a specific employee with a need / right to do such.
In my experience many companies leak like sieves. Web pages are full of names & numbers, especially MS Office-created ones replete with embedded names, titles, server-addresses & other identifying information nuggets. Helpful folks are often all too willing to give out names & contact information, especially on weekends and off-hours. Help desks can be snowed by a "remote contractor" or "new employee, not in the directory yet" brandishing their supposed boss's name and demanding information so they can "get their job done".
The best strategy? Cleaning up the leaks. Providing avenues of communication that are non-specific about their destination. Supporting folks when they refuse to give out information to unverifiable folks, defending them to those denied or their supervisors.
Finally it's not just a matter of keeping the crackers at bay; it's also stalker ex-dates, aggressive sales-weasels & other unwelcome harassers. While protecting the company folks are also protecting themselves.
First of all I'm going to ignore the legal aspects of this: Hours, responsibilities, remuneration vary too much from nation to nation, jurisdiction to jurisdiction to make any really useful comments on.
I'm also a bit biased as I'm a former tech now on the management side of things so adjust your perspective-compensators appropriately.
There are two fundamental issues here: Planning & Job Descriptions.
Without the planning in place there's no clear procedure to follow, no resources to assure are available, no guidelines on who is to be called and under what circumstances.
Without the job descriptions done properly the Employees & the Employer are left without clarity on responsibility.
All organizations should have clear guidelines for what systems are critical and which ones are merely important. All of these systems need to have plans detailing how they are to be handled in case of failure, what resources are required (people being the pertinent resources in this case) and how they are to be called upon.
"Critical" systems need to have folks available to repair them - these folks are either required to be on site (either as part of a shift cycle, as simply their regular hours of work or "On Call") and generally involves some form of remuneration or explicit understanding with the folks keeping themselves available. This requirement must be written into a person's job description and be mutually agreed to. Simply expecting folks to make themselves available, not leave the area, etc. is unreasonable.
Yes one may be "responsible" for the regular running of a system but off-hours, weekends & vacations are just that. Without that explicit understanding (and accompanying remuneration) one is free to lead one's life regularly during off-hours.
That said there are various classes of reasons that might lead to an IS/IT employee being called in.
"Emergencies" are just that - unanticipated events with significant immediate consequences. They are not part of normal operations; if they were they'd just be "Events". These happen very rarely in IS/IT and are only really legitimate in cases like consequences from a natural disaster, serious security breaches, systems failing that are not only mission-critical but are immediately mission-critical.
Emergencies are cause for calling folks at home, expecting them to change their plans, come in & save the place. Management, both senior & middle are expected to come in and stay for the duration handling the emergency, its consequences, etc. You should expect to see at most one of these a year even if you're the sort of person who's going to get called in first if there's an emergency.
If these happen more then once a year there's a problem with your operations. Either contingency planning is lax or your folks are cutting things too close to the edge. Whatever the case there's a fundamental problem that needs to be addressed at the very top levels.
"Events" are when something happens that is unanticipated and will have serious consequences. If you've got five servers one going down is an event. If you've got 500 it's not, it's just another log-entry and following the procedure.
Events are cause for calling the folks responsible for the affected systems and inviting them in. However as there should always be a contingency plan in place for these sorts of systems and On-Call folks qualified to handle the situation, at least in the immediate term.
If one is not able to come in (and professionally one should if possible unless one is attending a funeral, caring for an ill child or some other pressing reason) then one is blameless but it would be nice to help out. By the way, an employee refusing to come in is not required to justify themselves unless there is, again, an explicit understanding regarding this sort of situation. "I am/was busy" is good & sufficient reason for an average employee to decline coming in.
Finally there simply good ole Things-That-Happen. The same as during normal operation systems fail, wires get cut, folks working off-hours have problems. Every organization generally has times of full-service and times with decreased service-levels.
It's up to Management to decide what levels of service are appropriate to what times and to assure that adequate resources are made available. This may involve folks on-site, folks on-call, or simply not offering a response 'till a later time.
There are cases, generally in poorly run places where unscrupulous management will attempt to define all issues as emergencies and expect all staff to act as on-call staff. This is of course ridiculous.
I once had a former employee told by his new employer "Emergencies happen - it's part of the job" after being called in 3-4 nights a week and at least once every weekend for several months.
These aren't "Emergencies" - they're clearly part of normal operations for the place and should be considered as such (and the management that allows such a poor state of affairs to happen should be replaced.)
What can an employee do? Insist that there be guidelines implemented. Insist that their job description be clarified. This holds true for all classes of persons: Saleried, hourly, and contracted. If one is directly contracted then make sure this is addressed in your contract. If one is sub-contracted (agency staff, whatever) then speak to the folks who issue your paycheck, get this clarified and that you're ok with it.
Frankly as I told my abused former-staffer (who was once in the middle of some long-anticipated sex when called go into work for a bogus problem, and went!) just reply that you're too drunk to come into work. That's probably not the best response but it communicates one's unavailability in spite of being reached on the phone.
Other more reasonable responses include insisting all "Emergencies" be treated as such with some sort of procedure being followed. Clearly an "Emergency" requires an follow-up investigation into it's causes, an evaluation of how the department performed, some sort of report detailing what happened & how it can be avoided / better handled in the future. This kind of investigation & documentation are anathema to a manager who's using this as an "out" & will quickly put and end to this sort of monkey business.
Another is to simply make this technique onerous on the (ir)responsible management. You get called in (in it's not legitimately part of your job, your goodwill has been exhausted) then make sure other folks suffer. Call your manager, report what you're planning to do, get permission. This is best done at 3am. Then again at 4am with a follow-up. If they're not available find something that will need authorization & follow the chain of command... Up.
Then there's simply taking the time off the next day. Called in at 2am for an hour? Come in an hour late the next day. Spent Saturday fielding phonecalls? Monday out & meetings be damned, your schedule was.
Yes this is dangerous stuff, calling the CIO at 5am is not to be done lightly. Nor is adjusting one's schedule. Indded this sort of thing can quickly lead to poor future prosdpects if not simlpe termination. However if one is well & truly being screwed it will definitely bring attention to the problem.
Frankly as a Manager I've sometimes instituted the policy that for every call-in the person's Supervisor be called also. This generally provides a great deal of incentive not to abuse folks and makes robust planning much more attractive. Other policies that work are the full-invstigation & report as noted above.
Finally, try and be flexible. Yes there are times that one will likely be called on above & beyond the usual call of duty. A good employer will respect their employees and show appreciation. Try and give the benefit of the doubt and assume that this will be the case & that some good will come of what's happening. If not, well start shopping that resume.
Lovely idea but it doesn't belong in a basic standard.
There are lots of features we would all like to see added to many specs. Some of them would solve narrow problems quite neatly, others would be of broad applicability.
The question becomes how extensive should a specification be? Should mail be extended to handling response-forms? What about including full forms-routing? Do we include conditionials & alternates?
While we're at it how about extending the specification fields for email, adding more sender & reciever information, more meta-information, perhaps going to an XML-structure?
Then there's the old bugaboo of undeliverable email. How about putting in some standards for things like "no longer here but we'll forward anyway" or "here's their new address effective a/b/c)" or even "this rotten bastard is no longer associated with our repectable firm and if you've any sense you'll keep this freak away from small children & house pets!"
How far should basic principals go in servicing every situation? Frankly I think we should stick to a minimum effective specification & leave any extensions out in seperate documents where relevant applications can take advantage of them.
My Internet Toaster doesn't need forms to fill, why ask it to support these features?
Again, lots of good stuff out there but lets try to keep the fundamental documentation clear & universal, keep dedicated-use stuff off in it's own areas.
Perhaps you should start drawing up an RFC for what you want. They're open to everyone & if it's truly useful it'll likely get adopted.
Well, the quality of *your* life might be the same as it would have been in the 1950's but mine is sure a heck of a lot better.
Without medical advances I'd have likely died once if not twice. I also lead a much more comfortable life thanks to widespread electrification & air conditioning. Then there's social progress - my little sister is a senior executive at a major firm, were it not for social changes she'd have led a much more limited professional life. Of course as a gay man my social life would have been pretty limited too.
In the 1950's I would have lived in a segregated world by race & national origin. I'd likely have never been more then a hundred kilometers from where I was born. Communication was slow & expensive. Medicine & nutrition were a mere shadow of what they are today. Education was typically limited to HS & then consisted mostly of rote memorization. Opportunities were based on ones family & connections first & foremost, individual skills second.
Sure we've not escaped that a 100% but we're leaps & bounds beyond where we were two and a half generations ago.
As to the rate of advance by most estimates it's increasing. Social Scientists, Engineers, Theoreticians all agree the world is evolving faster & more fundamentally now for more people then it ever has before.
Mono-culturalism? That's hardly happening. Yes there are traits that are becoming widespread, increasing religious & ethnic tolerance (clearly still issues but less then they have been before outstanding counterexamples notwithstanding.) Democracy, greater freedom, increased opportunity, rising expectations, these are indeed becoming common. Indeed in 1950 half of the world was under or just out from fascism, imperialism, dictatorship or colonialism. Is moving beyond this a terrible thing, some oppressive mono-culturalism?
Since mid-century there's been a tidal wave of knowledge & communication. Exposure to new ideas, synthesis & synergy, hybridization & exploration to a breadth & depth never seen before in human history.
Sure one can find Coca Cola in 80 nations, however it's in 50 variations. Indigenous cultures are taking ideas & examples from other parts of the world and refashioning them into local interpretations, forming cross-cultural mélanges never seen before.
Euroderf delights in playing the nayseyer, asserting nothing has progressed since (depending on his posting) the Stone Age or the 15th century. Frankly the fact that he's doing so on/. only makes his trolling more pathetic - if he truly believed any of his guff he'd be off in a backwoods shack somewhere.
(By the way, 'derivative' is not a "postmodern concept" - if nothing else you demonstrate your shocking ignorance of history & culture by making these asinine statements)
Finally while it's true that the ever expanding body of previous work provides a growing cultural resource it by no means kills today's material. Do we fear ancient Greek or Japanese material? Are 11th century Scandinavian epics crushing Hollywood or Bollywood? Nonsense. Rather times change & while the human condition remains eternal modern interpretations always have a place.
Euroderf - I said it before & I'll say it again - your trolling is tiresome. If you truly believed anything you said you'd have offed yourself by now. As you remain you're clearly just trying to get a rise out of folks, and not very well at it.
Please, before throwing out half-baked assertions and ridiculous statements at least get a gloss on what oyou're trying to talk about.
ps Anyone modding this please look up Euroderfs posting history - he's been pulling this same stunt over & over again, trolling for attention. Mod if if you want to but at least do so knowledgably.
Actually insofar as I'm aware the classic mice-under-population-pressure-strss didn't exhibit homosexuality. While they do demonstrate a number of behaviours, many pathological, homosexuality (as I recall) isn't one of them (& not a pathology.)
Rather I'm referring to many well documented studies of animals in the wild or in domesticated situations but not under undue stress. There a percentage comperable to that in the human population perform engage in the same pair-bonding activities as their heterosexual counterparts of their species.
In short two bulls or two cows or two cygnets pair up the same as a mixed-gender couple would with every indication of it being a part of the natural variation within their species.
Every few weeks we see another of these projects. Usually designed by some well-meaning academic team or proposed by a big-thinking developer they're trumpeted in the Sunday papers as a new wonder.
Why are they in the Sunday papers (or Saturday if you're in a part of the world where that's the bulky-paper day?) Because they're not really news. Rather they're mildly entertaining filler. Nobody seriously expects these projects to go anywhere, including their authors.
Rather they're explorations, a way of getting folks talking & thinking, a way of giving a bunch of students a project and a way to get a few news stories published.
Actual blueprints? Nothing of the sort. There's no real finances, no real backers, just some folks willing to make positive noises and to push their own pet projects.
A Bering-Strait Bridge (or tunnel), the tallest building, a mega-city in the wilderness, personal flying cars, etc. We read about these every month but how often do they pan out?
Oh sure there's a sorta-prototype of the flying car (though the kewl fiberglass chassis they always wheel out has never flown) & yes the Chunnel did get built. Indeed there have been some extraordinary bridges built & a number of very impressive civil engineering projects in recent years. Heck, the Petronas Towers were generally assumed to be a joke when announced (Kuala where?) but what percentage of these do pan out? 1, 2 percent, tops?
Sorry, but just looking at the sketch in the article one can see it's more of a theory then a practicality. 12 flat floors held up by columns with standard office blocks & parkland on each floor? Why not combine the columns & the buildins for efficiency/stabilty? Plus what's with all of the wasted space? Nobody builds a couple hundred stories in the air only to use a dozen floors & then allocate 50% of that floorspace for greenspace.
Mega-construction is a fascinating topic & there are lots of neat things going on but this, well it's hardly a serious effort. Lets spend some time on something a bit more likely to happen at least, a better candidate for the first arcology.
Anyone have any good links on more likely mega-projects coming up?
Couple of thoughts on tall buildings
on
First Arcology?
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· Score: 5
First of all for fires in a building a dozen stories tall or a coupla hundred, it's no different. There's no way to assist anyone over 6 or so stories up.
These days all tall buildings advise their occupants to go a few stories up or down & hope the 'fireproof' construction holds. Since the contents of these buildings are fairly well regulated there's not a lot of danger though it is a lot of eggs to put in one basket.
As to elevators Otis & other companies have been grappling with these issues for years. The first solution was to build high-speed elevators & express elevators. The came double-deck elevators as so to get double duty out of a single car in a single shaft. Also Sky-Lobbies were intoduced where folks going to upper floors change elevators part-way up.
The current hot technology is self-propelled vehicles using onboard electric moters & the equivalent of cog rails. The cars can be centrally controlled and are able to move both vertically & horizontally (yes, as in Star Trek's "Turbolifts".)
The reason horizontal motion is important is it allows cars to pass each other in the shafts, one simply goes onto a 'siding' or otherwise moves aside. This allows multiple vehicles to share a limited number of shafts saving building space & keeping costs down.
However my concern is more about the surrounding infrastructure. The resource-requirements of an ediface of this scale will be astounding. The sheer volume of water & sewage, food & other consumables, trash, electricity, even the transportation to get these basic materials, consumer goods, not to mention people in & out of this will be mind-boggling.
Essentially you're taking a good-sized city & placing it vertically in a few square blocks. This means that all of the support services that generally move in & around a city of that size will need to compress into those same few square blocks. Imagine the commuters, delivery vans, trucks, sanitation, pipelines, powerlines, telecomm, etc. that make up your part of the world compressed into something this (comparatively) small.
Even with extensive automation, advanced delivery systems, recycling, waste reduction & other 'impact-lowering' techniques it's going to be terribly hard to support something of this scale.
Building the tower may turn out the easy part, keeping it going may be the ongoing challenge.
Clearly Archie hasn't been around animals much. Homosexual sexplay is common among animals. So is homosexual pair-bonding. Indeed the higher one gets in social sophistication the more likelyhood of homosexual critters. Elephants, dolphins, geese, dogs, all have well documented examples of homosexual members.
Having lived in a cold climate I can assure you that a dark house in a cold winter is every bit as helpful as a light one in a hot summer is.
Furthermore while a blacktop road can be stifling in summer it can also shed itself of snow & ice faster in the winter. I spent 2.5 years living in a small farmtown north of Montreal by the foot of the Laurentian Mountains: One quickly learned which parts of which roads would be clean & dry after some solar heating and which ones would remain treacherous. New & dark roads cleared quickly, older & bleached would take much longer.
Finally the paint-the-roof-white studies focussed on cities in the US West. These are primarily flat roofs covered in black asphalt & yes it was determined using some sort of cheap white-wash on top would significantly reduce both heat transmitted to the structure & heat contributed to the local environment.
On the other hand places with colder climates tend to get more precipitation and have fewer flat-roofs, particularly places with heavy snow buildup. There roof-color is less significent as other effects like angles & extensive attics come into play. It's not a matter of a dark roof being intrinsically less effective, it's just there are more variables to affect their performance.
First of all yes it is possible to configure your own little part of the world to continue working in case of a meltdown.
You'll need multiple connections that are all independant. This can be difficult to ensure as lots of times Company A's fiberlink will be in the same trench as Conpany B's & so the same backhoe will take them both out even though you used two services. You'll need to determine the full path your data will take & lots of time the salesfolk won't have or even understand what you want, particularly if you're not a big commercial account.
Then you'll need a way to route your inbound & outbound traffic dynamically. BGP is the method of choice but it's *not* a friendly thing. For the small-time techie Zebra & other tools are under development to help with this sort of thing but it's still tricky tricky stuff full of gotchas.
The same redundancy advice goes for power - you'll need at least two separate services that are well & truly separate, not just the same line coming in the front door as well as the back door. Local generation for backup is also a good idea. You'll need to test everything regularly - systems often fail & a botched hand-off can ruin your whole day.
That said a buddy set his house up to be always-connected. UPS's on key hardware. BSD on dual laptops using BGP connected to cable-modem, ADSL, dial-up, digital-cellphone & a ham packet radio rig. Even has a wireless connection to a friend in another town a few blocks away but on a different part of the grid & central exchange with a similar setup.
Of course it's still possible for something to break in a big way. One EMP over Arlington Virginia-area would take out lots of important services, probably causing major disruption in the confusion & resultant instability. Heck a group with an axe to grind could presumably cut enough critical cables in isolated areas in an hour or two to 'cause significant traffic problems globally.
This is of course no more different then bringing down any number of other services: Water, electricity, sewage, roads, gas pipelines - none are particularly hard to shut down if one is nuts enough to try.
I've a buddy with two 2m tall, 1m wide, 4cm thick electrostatic speakers in his livingroom - aside from feeling like one is in the presence of twin monoliths from 2001 they sound great. Of course for two grand each they should. However the power supply doubles as a very warm footstool and the cat's fur crackles whenever it walks by (it tries not to.)
On the other end I've got two 10cm x 5cm cheapie speakers I bought at discount (old iMac color) that sound ok but tinny. For 5 bucks I can't complain, they're smaller then anything else & don't mess with any magnetic media near them.
As to on a laptop screen - this as been talked about for years but every time a problem appears. Most of the times the speakers just weren't very robust physically, certianly not up to the life of a laptop. Or they've required too much power or degraded quickly. Then there's the whole "transparency" thing - unless they're reallyreally clear folks aren't going want to put a smoky layer of whatever over their screens, audio or no. From the article pics of this latest incarnation it looks pretty murky...
The article isn't clear on how these hollow-core fibers handle multiple frequencies of light (rather it implies different answers at different points.) It appears that (using their trite analogies) one might be trading in a several-hundred lane highway with regular tollbooths for a single lane without need for a tollbooth. Presumably this would be a boon for some applications but it's not a universal revolution.
Indeed with many of the increases in fiber-bandwidth having come from multiple frequencies of light & with greatly improved hardware soon to roll-out ('tunable' lasers & all-optical switches, some using light-frequency as a routing determinant) if these new fibers are truly limited in their frequency-transmisson they could find themselves hobbled when they eventually come to market.
I also wonder about splicing these cables, terminating them, etc. The difficulties of a single fiber were surmounted but with a number of wave-guides closely bonded together I imagine most present technology wouldn't work.
Those concens aside I can see a number of applications where a long-distance non-repeated cable could be of enormous use, particularly in under-sea cables.
Back to the when-can-we-see-this-in-our-homes I doubt we will ever as this particular technology seems unsuited for such an application. If the question were about fiber-in-general expect it to become possible in a few years.
Plastic-based fiber is proving to be cheaper & more versitile then glass based in the sort of mid/high density generally assumed for residential and now the sticking point is the connections & switching. Once cheap optical switches come onto the market it'll just be a matter of physical installation - presumably in about the same pattern cable-TV has used.
If you can get cable-TV now hopefully in about a deacade you'll begin having the option of fiber.
Imagine a Bewulf cluster of these... - sorry, couldn't resist.
Unlike unrestricted domains such as.com,.org and.net, use of the.edu domain name is reserved for the approximately 2,000 four-year colleges and universities in the United States.
There have been many institutions over the years with.edu domains that are not accredited 4-year academic institutions. Museums, research facilities, schools without 4-year programs, there are numerous examples of all of these (thank you, we don't need every/.'er noting the dozen closest to them.)
Either Reuters has simply gotten their 'facts' wrong (gee - a misreported tech story? Never!) or the enforcement of the 4-year policy has been innefectual.
Frankly I'm inclined to believe that either this supposed policy is a relatively recent one or there's a lot of details that have been omitted. In any case the Reuters story is clearly innacurate.
From my uniue perspective it is clear that Hotline Communications bent and manipulated the law legally and not so legally.
What is your "unique perspective"? How did Hotline Communications misbehave?
Maggard posted in another thread:
You are so sure he's the victim & everyone else was a crook & a swindler. From what I've seen Adam Hinkley has presented no compelling evidence of this, just his childish accusations & the sycophantic repeating by his fans.
To me it looks the opposite - a young man who got greedy & attempted to walk off with stolen goods, twice.
I could be completely off-base. Indeed I openly acknowledge I likely am in many ways. However yours & others repeating how Adam Hinkley was screwed doesn't make it so & until something more substantive is presented your assertions don't mean much, however passionately repeated.
Do you have something new to add or you just another "'cause I was told so" syncophant?
I have no idea what axe you're trying to grind but neither do I particularly care.
Apple pushed MacOS Server out the door. They killed it's companion desktop product. Since then MacOS Server 1.0 has languished acting as a sorta poor test-bed for the early betas of MacOS X & having a few features the MacOS >X-based AppleShare & Appleshare-IP didn't have (Netbooting, etc.) Now it's about to be replaced by the MacOS X based MacOS X Server.
This one Rhapsody-based product - gone. There will be at least a MacOS 9.2 released, possibly something after but it's all going to MacOS X.
The MacOS X "line"will has Darwin (PPC & x86) for it's base, MacOS X for a desktop & MacOS X Server (MacOS X with a few added packages) for a server.
Enough Mac-stuff.
As to trying to bait me with "Which company is better" or even "which OS is better" or "Look how bad (whatever) is" - sorry, won't work. You seem to have glommed on to MacOS as a counteragument for me but I simply corrected you since you were wrong: I don't have any emotionial committment to it. Indeed I don't have any particular emotionial committment to any of them. Go find your agument somewhere else.
I believe that MS uses it's roadmap as a tactical weapon when competing in the market. I believe there is a consistant & generally unremarked discrepancy between what MS projects to be in a product & when it will ship and what actually does & when. I believe that MS "Windows" is as 'fragmented' (broad, varied, whatever) as the *nix market is often portayed. I am interested in collecting & compiling information to discover if these beliefs are true or not.
Now, you may have some desire to see MS portayed in some way or not in another - fine. Go work for Werner-Edelstrom. If you feel my studies may be biased you're welcome to conduct your own. You can see the same links suggested as I do - go at it.
But please don't go try dragging me into some asinine OS or company war. Once I've got some material put together I can test my hypothosis & discover the validity of my premises. In the meantime it's just so much hot-air & frankly your style doesn't appeal to me anyhow.
I'll post a link with what I put together in a few weeks. Then you'll be welcome to go read it yourself.
You're right, I'm not going to go into detail re: fragmentation on Windows. Suffice to note that there's numerous versions of Windows-"proper" and several flavors of Windows-"varients" like Palm Windows (née WinCE), Embedded Windows, X-Box, etc.
As to failed deliveries & fragmentation, they were two topics. I'm interested in both the Windows "family tree" & in the feature-sets/timelines as originially planned & what actually shipped when.
Regarding the Apple server-redirects, likely because most customers are interested in the desktop OS & not the server OS. As it stands right now MacOS Server 1.0 (actually 1.something, it's in the link I pointed out previously) is due to be replaced with MacOS X Server 10.0 soon. Apple claimed within a month of the MacOS X release & reports are that it's on track & looking stable.
In Apple's timeline MacOS 9 was what came after Rhapsody debuted & aborted so it seems a reasonable place to redirect folks. As MacOS Server 1.0 hasn't been availaible for purchase for months & clearly has no future then pushing it on the website wouldn't make much sense. Personally I'd expect those links to go to MacOS X Server 10.0 promo stuff but it's possible they set them awhile ago & are holding off on changing anything 'till MacOS X Server 10.0 ships. Or they just screwed up.
well, XP will be a step in this direction. I'm not sure how much a merging it is as more simply the oft-delayed end-of-the-road for Win9x & MS finally getting to kill this product.
However there will still be a number of variations (DataCenter, a possible-WebServer-specific flavor, other high-end implementations, etc.) as well as the various quasi-Win-OS's like Embedded Windows, X-Box, Palm Windows (neé WinCe) etc.
These days it looks like MS is rolling out new Windows as fast as old ones wither so I'm not sure what the final tally will be. That's why I'm trying to get a timeline / family tree put together.
I'm singling out MS cause I'm interested in them, they're notorious for using "preemptive announcements" as a tactical tool in controlling the market and because of all the vendors they've made the most grandiose plans and fallen the shortest (well, Amiga but they're hardly of the same stature.)
As to MS being an easy target on/., yes, that's why I asked here. I considered asking on news://alt.tv.buffy-v-slayer but I doubted I'd get many replies or as much useful material.
-- Michael
ps - Just to correct your "OS-X (AKA Rhapsody)" comment - not accurate. Rhapsody did ship as MacOS Server 1.0, the client version was dropped in favor of the Darwin / MacOS X strategy. Check out this posting on/. of mine a week ago. Interestingly this is the post that got me interested in the MS timeline.
Many years ago I worked a company with a very screwed-up IS department (incredible turnover - something like avg. 90%/annum, standard resignation was to leave one's keycard & ID on the desk & never to return, very unhappy folks, etc.)
Anyway, my particular VP was a specially clueless idiot "Last year I didn't know what a LAN was - now I run it!" - actual quote) who was trying to make points by being as cheap as possible. That meant no spares of *anything*.
Well as invariably happens at the worst moment one of the principal servers for Corporate goes down. Hardware failure, we'll need to buy some parts. Important? Well several hundred folks log in & use it daily for files not to mention the Lotus Cc:Mail database that's on it.
What do we have to use in it's place? Diddly. There is not a free PC that we know of. My group even reviews folks with reasonably fast PCs who might be on vacation - no luck.
Wait, we *do* have a Toshiba Laptop just back from warrenty-repair. It's owner is away for another two weeks & it's a nice one, certiainly faster then many of the crapper desktops we've had to cobble together for ourselves (we were gettoing ready to draw straws to grab one of our desktop PCs...)
Unfortunately the Data Center was not a safe place for a laptop. Hardware walked with regularity, a sweet thing like little Toshie would be gone ASAP. Nobody was even bothering to learn the names of new staffers down there as they rarely lasted a week, sometimes only a single shift before realizing what a mistake they'd made & then walking (yes through some mystery my boss was also in charge of the Data Center.)
What do do?
Well, we threw Netware on our little savior, git it up & on the network, installed the piece-of-^%#^$* backup software we used (did a lovely job of backing up, just couldn't grab the rights - we'd screamed about this but our boss didn't think it an issue.) So we do a quick once-over resetting the rights on the most important dozen or so folks then moved on to the clever part of our plan.
Little Toshie fit neatly *inside* the cavernous hulk of the Everex "Step" server it was replacing. Knocking out a card-bracket slot we could run the network & power cables in through the back & no-one would notice. Yes, "Buddah-Too" would appear hale & hearty while inside the little-laptop-that-could would be the beating-heart of our mighty corporation.
Keyboard we skipped as we could do everything remotely that we might want to for the next few days, plus it meant less chance of the Data Center folks causing problems (they consistanly turned off Netware servers randomly upon hearing rumors of a possible problem - it was impossible to convince them that this was not a good thing & while it worked for DOS it was also why their Win3.x & '95 desktops were always screwed up.)
Anyway little Toshie sat in service for three days. The first day it was up almost all of the files were open but we manually reset most of the rights. A few folks noticed but as they called we'd reset their accounts manually & kept ahead of the curve. Of course when it came time to resuscitate "Buddah-Too" I & another had to pull an overnighter resetting it but the damn things was at least working at 8am the next day & once again IS had secretly saved it's own ass.
Who? Oh yeah, Thomson Financial Services in Boston. Anyone working there still - you inherited an "interesting" place (ask me about the duct-taped hard-drives sometime.) I'm told under a new regime things have gotton better but man they went through a baaad period.
I can't find any actual relevant numbers to back up my assertion Mac users are more efficient then Wintel users nor any useful numbers comparing TCO for each platform.
Apparently the Gartner Group (who were the TCO-gurus) had a whitepaper but I can't find it/am not willing to pay for it. References to other papers exist but they're all in the '98 timeframe & so not particularly relevant in todays changed market. There's some stuff on K-12 but as I noted earlier that's so distorted a market as to be useless for comparison or extrapolation.
Indeed after an hour of searching I find many sites repeating this "truism" but none with the numbers or links to the numbers.
Actually I believe I understood you & still disagree.
First I'm going to recommend you invest some time into reading what the original website has to say regarding the subject, the good stuff with letters between the original developers, pictures of the Lisa OS as it developed, timelines showing what happened when & where it came from.
This would give us a common ground to discuss within.
Again, I don't believe Apple lifted their material from Xerox PARC nor did it come about as a result of seeing PARC's stuff. Some of the developers were from PARC or were aware of PARC's stuff but even then they didn't re-invent PARC's material but instead developed a WIMP that differed significantly - significantly enough that it stands as a peer & not as a descendant.
Next I'm going to point out that Smalltalk is not a panacea. It's got some things right and many things not-so-right. Even the (comparatively) heavily popularized Squeak Smalltalk-implementation isn't something most folks would want to use as a significant tool. I've buddies who are big Smalltalk fans (& I'm an admirer) but few would want to run it all day, "live" in it.
There were some guidelines worked out early in the Lisa project that make interesting reading. Among them they make strong arguments for a constrained OS & GUI that would be consistent, (user) efficient & easily comprehensible. An easily-extended interface was specifically NOT their goal.
When the Lisa project set out everyone was dealing with a completely different toolkit for every application. Instead they wanted to get AWAY from this & instead go with a universal set of tools / methods / models that would be clearly & consistently applied across the OS & the applications.
No more Ctrl-Fizzle to copy in EasyWriter, Shift-mumblefarb to copy in Lotus 1-2-3, Alt-snippy to copy in Bank Street Writer. Instead it would be one set of reused controls across the OS & applications.
Yes something more elaborate, more elegant, more extensible appeals to those of us more hackish but for precisely the same reason they terrify the folks who just want to sit down & use their Mac. Even for those of us who customize our Macs now the first thing we usually do when sitting at another's is turn off their customizations.
I recall way-back-when when Borland was shipping it's own version of the Microsoft Foundation Classes for users of Borland's compilers developing for the Win 3.x environment. Everything was *almost* the same as the MS MFC but not *quite* - the graphics were different, the buttons larger, the layout a bit off. It invariably confused the users - some applications looking slightly different, vaguely unfamiliar.
Apple was smart to avoid that trap. Indeed they invested a good deal of time & effort in building up to this sort of thing but then axed it when developers, trainers & UI specialists started getting nightmares working in just such an idiosyncratic world. Your Smalltalk-UI would (I expect) quickly become a maze of developers doing things in subtly "better" ways...
One can't argue that the MacOS is a particularly well-designed product. Its QuickDraw was innovative as was its built-in Toolbox. The artistry Apple has shown in honing their interface over the years has been amazing.
(I recall being so impressed when Apple rebuilt parts of their OS to make "Control Panels" look & act like every other application when they were internally not at all structured as such: Apple specifically presented a lie in order to make their GUI more *USER*-logically consistent.)
On the other hand it quickly became dated & proved remarkably resilient to overhaul. Much of the impetuous to improve has always come from outside Apple (file-sharing was originally a small freeware hack, multitasking wasn't in the MacOS (Lisa had it) but was introduced with a 3rd-party tool, reveal-triangles & nested menus came from apps that broke the UI guidelines, extensions & patching traps were never designed in & were always a nasty kluge that seriously compromised system stability.) Apple rarely was able to effect substatial changes in it's OS & yes, it remained static for long periods of time.
Indeed even with Apple's transition from m68xx to PPC much of the code remains emulated m68xx - surely a legacy they'd shake if they could.
But would have following Xerox's model been much better? I don't believe so. The Alto was no joy & the Star not one either. The machines that most fit the model you seem to desire would have been the Symbolic's LISP machines & even they never made any great strides in the OS model or GUI (though they were perfectly poised to do so.)
You might be interested at looking at the GNU HURD. One of it's potential strengths is it's relatively small "fundamental" OS & great flexibility in user-controlled traditionial-OS elements. While it's not the pervasive unified-model you seem to desire (indeed almost the opposite) it nonetheless promises unprecedented flexibility in OS tools / methods / models.
However we only have Adam Hinkley's word that HE was under these conditions.
I'm asked to believe this bright young man, 17 years old, with a family & lawyers & the skills to found a company is now unable to speak in his own defense.
At no point does he express concerns, speak to his father (who was closely involved in the business,) raise issues with his lawyers. He was online every night speaking with his pals, many of whom had been involved in Hotline themselves & were passioniate supporters yet he doesn't run reality-checks past them, express his concerns, ask for advice or assistance.
Instead he signs a set of contracts *very* advantagous to him and we don't hear anything negative until he wants to set terms.
It all sounds very self-serving to me.
It could be true but neither you nor I actually know. Clearly he wasn't able to convince authorities in Canada (where they're very concerned about this sort of thing) nor Australia (I have no idea - I live in Canada & the US, not Australia.)
You are so sure he's the victim & everyone else was a crook & a swindler. From what I've seen Adam Hinkley has presented no compelling evidence of this, just his childish accusations & the sycophantic repeating by his fans.
To me it looks the opposite - a young man who got greedy & attempted to walk off with stolen goods, twice.
I could be completely off-base. Indeed I openly acknowledge I likely am in many ways. However yours & others repeating how Adam Hinkley was screwed doesn't make it so & until something more substantive is presented your assertions don't mean much, however passionately repeated.
In the meantime it looks like it is all-moot - the legal systems of two countries have investigated & made their determinations: Adam Hinkley is responsible for the contracts he signed & thus was found in fault.
Slashdot Mirror
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First-rate addresses are a person's primary address, used for "official" business, high-priority contacts. One's address might be "jrandomuser_direct@mycorphq.com" Of course mycorphq.com is only a mail-server, everything else is redirected to the traditionial address. Thus it's clearly a real address but different enough not to be trivially guessed / forged.
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Second-rate addresses are used for mailing lists, NYT-signups, buying via Amazon, given out to buddies, used for generic stuff. One's address for these is usually a plausable but different address then the primary one, "jrandomuser@mycorp.com". This address is easily discovered but peers know it's not your primary address, material from it is suspect.
The advantage of this is that folks can use it to pre-sort what kind of mail they're likely to get and how important what they're sending / using is. Sales-sheet to a customer: first-class. Latest pass-around-joke: second-class. Memo to whomever: first-class. Registration forI don't know about your facility but most of the "secure" ones I know do have guests and such come within them. I can't imagine it would be too hard to create a plausable reason to have a meeting, get into some 'secured' part of the building & pop in a wireless repeater. As I noted conference rooms with live drops are great places to leave something plugged in, or better yet an empty office with a device popped behind the trash bin, broadcasting away.
Firewalls, armed guards & such are great to keep folks out without a reason to be inside. The concern is that if a person can generate a reason to be inside they can find a weakness. The Trojans learned this with a horse, but it could just as well be a salesdroid, "reporter" or other guest. Leaving ports live unnecessarily is not a prudent practice.
Clear company policies need to be set up regarding what information is divulged & how. This is of interest not only to IS but to HR (keeping away poachers) and to individuals (stalkers, toner salesmen.)
Some basic strategies I've used are:
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The switchboard never gives out direct lines numbers. If someone needs a direct number the person can give it himself or herself.
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All staff is requested not to give out information regarding other employees. All such calls or emails are to be referred to HR. There calls are then screened, phone numbers are taken and callbacks used. Generally only a message is taken and passed along.
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Generic accounts are set up for key positions on voicemail & email. Callers requesting the name or contact information for unspecified folks (job titles) are referred to these generic accounts where an AA can sift through them later.
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Functional addresses & numbers are used where possible. Not only do these maintain privacy & security they also facilitate job turnover/movement (outsiders don't play chase only to discover the person has either left the company or moved to a different position, is no longer who they want.)
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"Out of Office" auto responses are not allowed to propagate outside of the business if allowed at all. They are specifically flagged at creation and blocked at the company's outbound servers.
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Identifying information is stripped from client-applications. This includes web-browsers not giving out names or other non-relevant information.
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The corporate phone & email directories are not allowed to be visible outside of the company. Furthermore their printing or copying is discouraged, made difficult.
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Laptops are heavily secured as they can provide invaluable information on a company's internals. This means using encrypted file systems, etc.
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Support & security folks have access to up-to-the-moment company directories that indicate a employee & contractor's names and where they fit in the org chart. Outside calls requesting possibly sensitive information from folks not known personally to the support person are conference-called to someone knowing them to verify their identity. If in doubt a callback is arranged and some method of determining their identity is found even if it means their describing what's in their top left desk drawer.
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Security is encouraged to be vigilant and backed up! Refusing access, even to a VIP or someone with a good story is respected and the employee commended if the refusal was warranted (doubt is in their favor.)
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Paper-shredders are made availaible and easy-to-use. In cases of bulk-shreddings special bins (recycling bins sprayed an ugly color) can be used & the shredding will be done by someone else.
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Outside trash containers are not hidden behind the building but in a secured and/or visible location. If necc. some sort of beautification can be undertaken but putting them where activity will be noted is important, more important then hiding them.
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Outside access to company resources is heavily controlled. Some possible common-sense measures include not making VPN's full peers on the network but filtering them from sensitive areas, no use of direct-inbound-dialing-to-computers (PC-Anywhere etc.) Furthermore 'unreasonable' hours should be implemented; there's rarely a pressing need to work remotely at 4am even if one employee might want to do so once a month, it's not worth the hazards.
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"Public" & unused parts of all facilities should not have live network drops without a specific need & their being kept in visible places. Network drops in unused parts of facilities are deactivated from the closet. Large-areas that are unused are completely deactivated. This means no drops behind the couch in the lobby and no working drops in the empty offices/floors.
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Settings given to outsiders within the company (folks using conference rooms etc.) should be filtered to give only limited access. The handy how-to-get-on-our-network sheets posted on the walls of these rooms *only* give information to 'guest' settings.
- "Honeypot"-like devices should be placed within the company firewall & monitored. SNMP, network scans or the like traffic should be flagged and correlated with a specific employee with a need / right to do such.
In my experience many companies leak like sieves. Web pages are full of names & numbers, especially MS Office-created ones replete with embedded names, titles, server-addresses & other identifying information nuggets. Helpful folks are often all too willing to give out names & contact information, especially on weekends and off-hours. Help desks can be snowed by a "remote contractor" or "new employee, not in the directory yet" brandishing their supposed boss's name and demanding information so they can "get their job done".The best strategy? Cleaning up the leaks. Providing avenues of communication that are non-specific about their destination. Supporting folks when they refuse to give out information to unverifiable folks, defending them to those denied or their supervisors.
Finally it's not just a matter of keeping the crackers at bay; it's also stalker ex-dates, aggressive sales-weasels & other unwelcome harassers. While protecting the company folks are also protecting themselves.
I'm also a bit biased as I'm a former tech now on the management side of things so adjust your perspective-compensators appropriately.
There are two fundamental issues here: Planning & Job Descriptions.
Without the planning in place there's no clear procedure to follow, no resources to assure are available, no guidelines on who is to be called and under what circumstances.
Without the job descriptions done properly the Employees & the Employer are left without clarity on responsibility.
All organizations should have clear guidelines for what systems are critical and which ones are merely important. All of these systems need to have plans detailing how they are to be handled in case of failure, what resources are required (people being the pertinent resources in this case) and how they are to be called upon.
"Critical" systems need to have folks available to repair them - these folks are either required to be on site (either as part of a shift cycle, as simply their regular hours of work or "On Call") and generally involves some form of remuneration or explicit understanding with the folks keeping themselves available. This requirement must be written into a person's job description and be mutually agreed to. Simply expecting folks to make themselves available, not leave the area, etc. is unreasonable.
Yes one may be "responsible" for the regular running of a system but off-hours, weekends & vacations are just that. Without that explicit understanding (and accompanying remuneration) one is free to lead one's life regularly during off-hours.
That said there are various classes of reasons that might lead to an IS/IT employee being called in.
"Emergencies" are just that - unanticipated events with significant immediate consequences. They are not part of normal operations; if they were they'd just be "Events". These happen very rarely in IS/IT and are only really legitimate in cases like consequences from a natural disaster, serious security breaches, systems failing that are not only mission-critical but are immediately mission-critical.
Emergencies are cause for calling folks at home, expecting them to change their plans, come in & save the place. Management, both senior & middle are expected to come in and stay for the duration handling the emergency, its consequences, etc. You should expect to see at most one of these a year even if you're the sort of person who's going to get called in first if there's an emergency.
If these happen more then once a year there's a problem with your operations. Either contingency planning is lax or your folks are cutting things too close to the edge. Whatever the case there's a fundamental problem that needs to be addressed at the very top levels.
"Events" are when something happens that is unanticipated and will have serious consequences. If you've got five servers one going down is an event. If you've got 500 it's not, it's just another log-entry and following the procedure.
Events are cause for calling the folks responsible for the affected systems and inviting them in. However as there should always be a contingency plan in place for these sorts of systems and On-Call folks qualified to handle the situation, at least in the immediate term.
If one is not able to come in (and professionally one should if possible unless one is attending a funeral, caring for an ill child or some other pressing reason) then one is blameless but it would be nice to help out. By the way, an employee refusing to come in is not required to justify themselves unless there is, again, an explicit understanding regarding this sort of situation. "I am/was busy" is good & sufficient reason for an average employee to decline coming in.
Finally there simply good ole Things-That-Happen. The same as during normal operation systems fail, wires get cut, folks working off-hours have problems. Every organization generally has times of full-service and times with decreased service-levels.
It's up to Management to decide what levels of service are appropriate to what times and to assure that adequate resources are made available. This may involve folks on-site, folks on-call, or simply not offering a response 'till a later time.
There are cases, generally in poorly run places where unscrupulous management will attempt to define all issues as emergencies and expect all staff to act as on-call staff. This is of course ridiculous.
I once had a former employee told by his new employer "Emergencies happen - it's part of the job" after being called in 3-4 nights a week and at least once every weekend for several months.
These aren't "Emergencies" - they're clearly part of normal operations for the place and should be considered as such (and the management that allows such a poor state of affairs to happen should be replaced.)
What can an employee do? Insist that there be guidelines implemented. Insist that their job description be clarified. This holds true for all classes of persons: Saleried, hourly, and contracted. If one is directly contracted then make sure this is addressed in your contract. If one is sub-contracted (agency staff, whatever) then speak to the folks who issue your paycheck, get this clarified and that you're ok with it.
Frankly as I told my abused former-staffer (who was once in the middle of some long-anticipated sex when called go into work for a bogus problem, and went!) just reply that you're too drunk to come into work. That's probably not the best response but it communicates one's unavailability in spite of being reached on the phone.
Other more reasonable responses include insisting all "Emergencies" be treated as such with some sort of procedure being followed. Clearly an "Emergency" requires an follow-up investigation into it's causes, an evaluation of how the department performed, some sort of report detailing what happened & how it can be avoided / better handled in the future. This kind of investigation & documentation are anathema to a manager who's using this as an "out" & will quickly put and end to this sort of monkey business.
Another is to simply make this technique onerous on the (ir)responsible management. You get called in (in it's not legitimately part of your job, your goodwill has been exhausted) then make sure other folks suffer. Call your manager, report what you're planning to do, get permission. This is best done at 3am. Then again at 4am with a follow-up. If they're not available find something that will need authorization & follow the chain of command... Up.
Then there's simply taking the time off the next day. Called in at 2am for an hour? Come in an hour late the next day. Spent Saturday fielding phonecalls? Monday out & meetings be damned, your schedule was.
Yes this is dangerous stuff, calling the CIO at 5am is not to be done lightly. Nor is adjusting one's schedule. Indded this sort of thing can quickly lead to poor future prosdpects if not simlpe termination. However if one is well & truly being screwed it will definitely bring attention to the problem.
Frankly as a Manager I've sometimes instituted the policy that for every call-in the person's Supervisor be called also. This generally provides a great deal of incentive not to abuse folks and makes robust planning much more attractive. Other policies that work are the full-invstigation & report as noted above.
Finally, try and be flexible. Yes there are times that one will likely be called on above & beyond the usual call of duty. A good employer will respect their employees and show appreciation. Try and give the benefit of the doubt and assume that this will be the case & that some good will come of what's happening. If not, well start shopping that resume.
There are lots of features we would all like to see added to many specs. Some of them would solve narrow problems quite neatly, others would be of broad applicability.
The question becomes how extensive should a specification be? Should mail be extended to handling response-forms? What about including full forms-routing? Do we include conditionials & alternates?
While we're at it how about extending the specification fields for email, adding more sender & reciever information, more meta-information, perhaps going to an XML-structure?
Then there's the old bugaboo of undeliverable email. How about putting in some standards for things like "no longer here but we'll forward anyway" or "here's their new address effective a/b/c)" or even "this rotten bastard is no longer associated with our repectable firm and if you've any sense you'll keep this freak away from small children & house pets!"
How far should basic principals go in servicing every situation? Frankly I think we should stick to a minimum effective specification & leave any extensions out in seperate documents where relevant applications can take advantage of them.
My Internet Toaster doesn't need forms to fill, why ask it to support these features?
Again, lots of good stuff out there but lets try to keep the fundamental documentation clear & universal, keep dedicated-use stuff off in it's own areas.
Perhaps you should start drawing up an RFC for what you want. They're open to everyone & if it's truly useful it'll likely get adopted.
Well, the quality of *your* life might be the same as it would have been in the 1950's but mine is sure a heck of a lot better.
Without medical advances I'd have likely died once if not twice. I also lead a much more comfortable life thanks to widespread electrification & air conditioning. Then there's social progress - my little sister is a senior executive at a major firm, were it not for social changes she'd have led a much more limited professional life. Of course as a gay man my social life would have been pretty limited too.
In the 1950's I would have lived in a segregated world by race & national origin. I'd likely have never been more then a hundred kilometers from where I was born. Communication was slow & expensive. Medicine & nutrition were a mere shadow of what they are today. Education was typically limited to HS & then consisted mostly of rote memorization. Opportunities were based on ones family & connections first & foremost, individual skills second.
Sure we've not escaped that a 100% but we're leaps & bounds beyond where we were two and a half generations ago.
As to the rate of advance by most estimates it's increasing. Social Scientists, Engineers, Theoreticians all agree the world is evolving faster & more fundamentally now for more people then it ever has before.
Mono-culturalism? That's hardly happening. Yes there are traits that are becoming widespread, increasing religious & ethnic tolerance (clearly still issues but less then they have been before outstanding counterexamples notwithstanding.) Democracy, greater freedom, increased opportunity, rising expectations, these are indeed becoming common. Indeed in 1950 half of the world was under or just out from fascism, imperialism, dictatorship or colonialism. Is moving beyond this a terrible thing, some oppressive mono-culturalism?
Since mid-century there's been a tidal wave of knowledge & communication. Exposure to new ideas, synthesis & synergy, hybridization & exploration to a breadth & depth never seen before in human history.
Sure one can find Coca Cola in 80 nations, however it's in 50 variations. Indigenous cultures are taking ideas & examples from other parts of the world and refashioning them into local interpretations, forming cross-cultural mélanges never seen before.
Euroderf delights in playing the nayseyer, asserting nothing has progressed since (depending on his posting) the Stone Age or the 15th century. Frankly the fact that he's doing so on /. only makes his trolling more pathetic - if he truly believed any of his guff he'd be off in a backwoods shack somewhere.
(By the way, 'derivative' is not a "postmodern concept" - if nothing else you demonstrate your shocking ignorance of history & culture by making these asinine statements)
Finally while it's true that the ever expanding body of previous work provides a growing cultural resource it by no means kills today's material. Do we fear ancient Greek or Japanese material? Are 11th century Scandinavian epics crushing Hollywood or Bollywood? Nonsense. Rather times change & while the human condition remains eternal modern interpretations always have a place.
Euroderf - I said it before & I'll say it again - your trolling is tiresome. If you truly believed anything you said you'd have offed yourself by now. As you remain you're clearly just trying to get a rise out of folks, and not very well at it.
Please, before throwing out half-baked assertions and ridiculous statements at least get a gloss on what oyou're trying to talk about.
ps Anyone modding this please look up Euroderfs posting history - he's been pulling this same stunt over & over again, trolling for attention. Mod if if you want to but at least do so knowledgably.
Rather I'm referring to many well documented studies of animals in the wild or in domesticated situations but not under undue stress. There a percentage comperable to that in the human population perform engage in the same pair-bonding activities as their heterosexual counterparts of their species.
In short two bulls or two cows or two cygnets pair up the same as a mixed-gender couple would with every indication of it being a part of the natural variation within their species.
Why are they in the Sunday papers (or Saturday if you're in a part of the world where that's the bulky-paper day?) Because they're not really news. Rather they're mildly entertaining filler. Nobody seriously expects these projects to go anywhere, including their authors.
Rather they're explorations, a way of getting folks talking & thinking, a way of giving a bunch of students a project and a way to get a few news stories published.
Actual blueprints? Nothing of the sort. There's no real finances, no real backers, just some folks willing to make positive noises and to push their own pet projects.
A Bering-Strait Bridge (or tunnel), the tallest building, a mega-city in the wilderness, personal flying cars, etc. We read about these every month but how often do they pan out?
Oh sure there's a sorta-prototype of the flying car (though the kewl fiberglass chassis they always wheel out has never flown) & yes the Chunnel did get built. Indeed there have been some extraordinary bridges built & a number of very impressive civil engineering projects in recent years. Heck, the Petronas Towers were generally assumed to be a joke when announced (Kuala where?) but what percentage of these do pan out? 1, 2 percent, tops?
Sorry, but just looking at the sketch in the article one can see it's more of a theory then a practicality. 12 flat floors held up by columns with standard office blocks & parkland on each floor? Why not combine the columns & the buildins for efficiency/stabilty? Plus what's with all of the wasted space? Nobody builds a couple hundred stories in the air only to use a dozen floors & then allocate 50% of that floorspace for greenspace.
Mega-construction is a fascinating topic & there are lots of neat things going on but this, well it's hardly a serious effort. Lets spend some time on something a bit more likely to happen at least, a better candidate for the first arcology.
Anyone have any good links on more likely mega-projects coming up?
These days all tall buildings advise their occupants to go a few stories up or down & hope the 'fireproof' construction holds. Since the contents of these buildings are fairly well regulated there's not a lot of danger though it is a lot of eggs to put in one basket.
As to elevators Otis & other companies have been grappling with these issues for years. The first solution was to build high-speed elevators & express elevators. The came double-deck elevators as so to get double duty out of a single car in a single shaft. Also Sky-Lobbies were intoduced where folks going to upper floors change elevators part-way up.
The current hot technology is self-propelled vehicles using onboard electric moters & the equivalent of cog rails. The cars can be centrally controlled and are able to move both vertically & horizontally (yes, as in Star Trek's "Turbolifts".)
The reason horizontal motion is important is it allows cars to pass each other in the shafts, one simply goes onto a 'siding' or otherwise moves aside. This allows multiple vehicles to share a limited number of shafts saving building space & keeping costs down.
However my concern is more about the surrounding infrastructure. The resource-requirements of an ediface of this scale will be astounding. The sheer volume of water & sewage, food & other consumables, trash, electricity, even the transportation to get these basic materials, consumer goods, not to mention people in & out of this will be mind-boggling.
Essentially you're taking a good-sized city & placing it vertically in a few square blocks. This means that all of the support services that generally move in & around a city of that size will need to compress into those same few square blocks. Imagine the commuters, delivery vans, trucks, sanitation, pipelines, powerlines, telecomm, etc. that make up your part of the world compressed into something this (comparatively) small.
Even with extensive automation, advanced delivery systems, recycling, waste reduction & other 'impact-lowering' techniques it's going to be terribly hard to support something of this scale.
Building the tower may turn out the easy part, keeping it going may be the ongoing challenge.
Clearly Archie hasn't been around animals much. Homosexual sexplay is common among animals. So is homosexual pair-bonding. Indeed the higher one gets in social sophistication the more likelyhood of homosexual critters. Elephants, dolphins, geese, dogs, all have well documented examples of homosexual members.
Please do so now - you'll have escaped the bleakness you see around you & save the rest of us the annoyance of your sophmoric bs.
No, I'm not kidding. If you're not medically depressed but truly believe your posting then either achieve something or get out of the way.
For those tempted to mod this as a troll - go read the original posting. While my response is harsh it's not unreasonable.
Having lived in a cold climate I can assure you that a dark house in a cold winter is every bit as helpful as a light one in a hot summer is.
Furthermore while a blacktop road can be stifling in summer it can also shed itself of snow & ice faster in the winter. I spent 2.5 years living in a small farmtown north of Montreal by the foot of the Laurentian Mountains: One quickly learned which parts of which roads would be clean & dry after some solar heating and which ones would remain treacherous. New & dark roads cleared quickly, older & bleached would take much longer.
Finally the paint-the-roof-white studies focussed on cities in the US West. These are primarily flat roofs covered in black asphalt & yes it was determined using some sort of cheap white-wash on top would significantly reduce both heat transmitted to the structure & heat contributed to the local environment.
On the other hand places with colder climates tend to get more precipitation and have fewer flat-roofs, particularly places with heavy snow buildup. There roof-color is less significent as other effects like angles & extensive attics come into play. It's not a matter of a dark roof being intrinsically less effective, it's just there are more variables to affect their performance.
You'll need multiple connections that are all independant. This can be difficult to ensure as lots of times Company A's fiberlink will be in the same trench as Conpany B's & so the same backhoe will take them both out even though you used two services. You'll need to determine the full path your data will take & lots of time the salesfolk won't have or even understand what you want, particularly if you're not a big commercial account.
Then you'll need a way to route your inbound & outbound traffic dynamically. BGP is the method of choice but it's *not* a friendly thing. For the small-time techie Zebra & other tools are under development to help with this sort of thing but it's still tricky tricky stuff full of gotchas.
The same redundancy advice goes for power - you'll need at least two separate services that are well & truly separate, not just the same line coming in the front door as well as the back door. Local generation for backup is also a good idea. You'll need to test everything regularly - systems often fail & a botched hand-off can ruin your whole day.
That said a buddy set his house up to be always-connected. UPS's on key hardware. BSD on dual laptops using BGP connected to cable-modem, ADSL, dial-up, digital-cellphone & a ham packet radio rig. Even has a wireless connection to a friend in another town a few blocks away but on a different part of the grid & central exchange with a similar setup.
Of course it's still possible for something to break in a big way. One EMP over Arlington Virginia-area would take out lots of important services, probably causing major disruption in the confusion & resultant instability. Heck a group with an axe to grind could presumably cut enough critical cables in isolated areas in an hour or two to 'cause significant traffic problems globally.
This is of course no more different then bringing down any number of other services: Water, electricity, sewage, roads, gas pipelines - none are particularly hard to shut down if one is nuts enough to try.
On the other end I've got two 10cm x 5cm cheapie speakers I bought at discount (old iMac color) that sound ok but tinny. For 5 bucks I can't complain, they're smaller then anything else & don't mess with any magnetic media near them.
As to on a laptop screen - this as been talked about for years but every time a problem appears. Most of the times the speakers just weren't very robust physically, certianly not up to the life of a laptop. Or they've required too much power or degraded quickly. Then there's the whole "transparency" thing - unless they're really really clear folks aren't going want to put a smoky layer of whatever over their screens, audio or no. From the article pics of this latest incarnation it looks pretty murky...
Indeed with many of the increases in fiber-bandwidth having come from multiple frequencies of light & with greatly improved hardware soon to roll-out ('tunable' lasers & all-optical switches, some using light-frequency as a routing determinant) if these new fibers are truly limited in their frequency-transmisson they could find themselves hobbled when they eventually come to market.
I also wonder about splicing these cables, terminating them, etc. The difficulties of a single fiber were surmounted but with a number of wave-guides closely bonded together I imagine most present technology wouldn't work.
Those concens aside I can see a number of applications where a long-distance non-repeated cable could be of enormous use, particularly in under-sea cables.
Back to the when-can-we-see-this-in-our-homes I doubt we will ever as this particular technology seems unsuited for such an application. If the question were about fiber-in-general expect it to become possible in a few years.
Plastic-based fiber is proving to be cheaper & more versitile then glass based in the sort of mid/high density generally assumed for residential and now the sticking point is the connections & switching. Once cheap optical switches come onto the market it'll just be a matter of physical installation - presumably in about the same pattern cable-TV has used.
If you can get cable-TV now hopefully in about a deacade you'll begin having the option of fiber.
Imagine a Bewulf cluster of these... - sorry, couldn't resist.
There have been many institutions over the years with .edu domains that are not accredited 4-year academic institutions. Museums, research facilities, schools without 4-year programs, there are numerous examples of all of these (thank you, we don't need every /.'er noting the dozen closest to them.)
Either Reuters has simply gotten their 'facts' wrong (gee - a misreported tech story? Never!) or the enforcement of the 4-year policy has been innefectual.
Frankly I'm inclined to believe that either this supposed policy is a relatively recent one or there's a lot of details that have been omitted. In any case the Reuters story is clearly innacurate.
What is your "unique perspective"? How did Hotline Communications misbehave?
Maggard posted in another thread:
Do you have something new to add or you just another "'cause I was told so" syncophant?
As to trying to bait me with "Which company is better" or even "which OS is better" or "Look how bad (whatever) is" - sorry, won't work. You seem to have glommed on to MacOS as a counteragument for me but I simply corrected you since you were wrong: I don't have any emotionial committment to it. Indeed I don't have any particular emotionial committment to any of them. Go find your agument somewhere else.
I believe that MS uses it's roadmap as a tactical weapon when competing in the market. I believe there is a consistant & generally unremarked discrepancy between what MS projects to be in a product & when it will ship and what actually does & when. I believe that MS "Windows" is as 'fragmented' (broad, varied, whatever) as the *nix market is often portayed. I am interested in collecting & compiling information to discover if these beliefs are true or not.
Now, you may have some desire to see MS portayed in some way or not in another - fine. Go work for Werner-Edelstrom. If you feel my studies may be biased you're welcome to conduct your own. You can see the same links suggested as I do - go at it.
But please don't go try dragging me into some asinine OS or company war. Once I've got some material put together I can test my hypothosis & discover the validity of my premises. In the meantime it's just so much hot-air & frankly your style doesn't appeal to me anyhow.
I'll post a link with what I put together in a few weeks. Then you'll be welcome to go read it yourself.
As to failed deliveries & fragmentation, they were two topics. I'm interested in both the Windows "family tree" & in the feature-sets/timelines as originially planned & what actually shipped when.
Regarding the Apple server-redirects, likely because most customers are interested in the desktop OS & not the server OS. As it stands right now MacOS Server 1.0 (actually 1.something, it's in the link I pointed out previously) is due to be replaced with MacOS X Server 10.0 soon. Apple claimed within a month of the MacOS X release & reports are that it's on track & looking stable.
In Apple's timeline MacOS 9 was what came after Rhapsody debuted & aborted so it seems a reasonable place to redirect folks. As MacOS Server 1.0 hasn't been availaible for purchase for months & clearly has no future then pushing it on the website wouldn't make much sense. Personally I'd expect those links to go to MacOS X Server 10.0 promo stuff but it's possible they set them awhile ago & are holding off on changing anything 'till MacOS X Server 10.0 ships. Or they just screwed up.
However there will still be a number of variations (DataCenter, a possible-WebServer-specific flavor, other high-end implementations, etc.) as well as the various quasi-Win-OS's like Embedded Windows, X-Box, Palm Windows (neé WinCe) etc.
These days it looks like MS is rolling out new Windows as fast as old ones wither so I'm not sure what the final tally will be. That's why I'm trying to get a timeline / family tree put together.
As to MS being an easy target on /., yes, that's why I asked here. I considered asking on news://alt.tv.buffy-v-slayer but I doubted I'd get many replies or as much useful material.
-- Michael
ps - Just to correct your "OS-X (AKA Rhapsody)" comment - not accurate. Rhapsody did ship as MacOS Server 1.0, the client version was dropped in favor of the Darwin / MacOS X strategy. Check out this posting on /. of mine a week ago. Interestingly this is the post that got me interested in the MS timeline.
Anyway, my particular VP was a specially clueless idiot "Last year I didn't know what a LAN was - now I run it!" - actual quote) who was trying to make points by being as cheap as possible. That meant no spares of *anything*.
Well as invariably happens at the worst moment one of the principal servers for Corporate goes down. Hardware failure, we'll need to buy some parts. Important? Well several hundred folks log in & use it daily for files not to mention the Lotus Cc:Mail database that's on it.
What do we have to use in it's place? Diddly. There is not a free PC that we know of. My group even reviews folks with reasonably fast PCs who might be on vacation - no luck.
Wait, we *do* have a Toshiba Laptop just back from warrenty-repair. It's owner is away for another two weeks & it's a nice one, certiainly faster then many of the crapper desktops we've had to cobble together for ourselves (we were gettoing ready to draw straws to grab one of our desktop PCs...)
Unfortunately the Data Center was not a safe place for a laptop. Hardware walked with regularity, a sweet thing like little Toshie would be gone ASAP. Nobody was even bothering to learn the names of new staffers down there as they rarely lasted a week, sometimes only a single shift before realizing what a mistake they'd made & then walking (yes through some mystery my boss was also in charge of the Data Center.)
What do do?
Well, we threw Netware on our little savior, git it up & on the network, installed the piece-of-^%#^$* backup software we used (did a lovely job of backing up, just couldn't grab the rights - we'd screamed about this but our boss didn't think it an issue.) So we do a quick once-over resetting the rights on the most important dozen or so folks then moved on to the clever part of our plan.
Little Toshie fit neatly *inside* the cavernous hulk of the Everex "Step" server it was replacing. Knocking out a card-bracket slot we could run the network & power cables in through the back & no-one would notice. Yes, "Buddah-Too" would appear hale & hearty while inside the little-laptop-that-could would be the beating-heart of our mighty corporation.
Keyboard we skipped as we could do everything remotely that we might want to for the next few days, plus it meant less chance of the Data Center folks causing problems (they consistanly turned off Netware servers randomly upon hearing rumors of a possible problem - it was impossible to convince them that this was not a good thing & while it worked for DOS it was also why their Win3.x & '95 desktops were always screwed up.)
Anyway little Toshie sat in service for three days. The first day it was up almost all of the files were open but we manually reset most of the rights. A few folks noticed but as they called we'd reset their accounts manually & kept ahead of the curve. Of course when it came time to resuscitate "Buddah-Too" I & another had to pull an overnighter resetting it but the damn things was at least working at 8am the next day & once again IS had secretly saved it's own ass.
Who? Oh yeah, Thomson Financial Services in Boston. Anyone working there still - you inherited an "interesting" place (ask me about the duct-taped hard-drives sometime.) I'm told under a new regime things have gotton better but man they went through a baaad period.
Apparently the Gartner Group (who were the TCO-gurus) had a whitepaper but I can't find it/am not willing to pay for it. References to other papers exist but they're all in the '98 timeframe & so not particularly relevant in todays changed market. There's some stuff on K-12 but as I noted earlier that's so distorted a market as to be useless for comparison or extrapolation.
Indeed after an hour of searching I find many sites repeating this "truism" but none with the numbers or links to the numbers.
First I'm going to recommend you invest some time into reading what the original website has to say regarding the subject, the good stuff with letters between the original developers, pictures of the Lisa OS as it developed, timelines showing what happened when & where it came from.
This would give us a common ground to discuss within.
Again, I don't believe Apple lifted their material from Xerox PARC nor did it come about as a result of seeing PARC's stuff. Some of the developers were from PARC or were aware of PARC's stuff but even then they didn't re-invent PARC's material but instead developed a WIMP that differed significantly - significantly enough that it stands as a peer & not as a descendant.
Next I'm going to point out that Smalltalk is not a panacea. It's got some things right and many things not-so-right. Even the (comparatively) heavily popularized Squeak Smalltalk-implementation isn't something most folks would want to use as a significant tool. I've buddies who are big Smalltalk fans (& I'm an admirer) but few would want to run it all day, "live" in it.
There were some guidelines worked out early in the Lisa project that make interesting reading. Among them they make strong arguments for a constrained OS & GUI that would be consistent, (user) efficient & easily comprehensible. An easily-extended interface was specifically NOT their goal.
When the Lisa project set out everyone was dealing with a completely different toolkit for every application. Instead they wanted to get AWAY from this & instead go with a universal set of tools / methods / models that would be clearly & consistently applied across the OS & the applications.
No more Ctrl-Fizzle to copy in EasyWriter, Shift-mumblefarb to copy in Lotus 1-2-3, Alt-snippy to copy in Bank Street Writer. Instead it would be one set of reused controls across the OS & applications.
Yes something more elaborate, more elegant, more extensible appeals to those of us more hackish but for precisely the same reason they terrify the folks who just want to sit down & use their Mac. Even for those of us who customize our Macs now the first thing we usually do when sitting at another's is turn off their customizations.
I recall way-back-when when Borland was shipping it's own version of the Microsoft Foundation Classes for users of Borland's compilers developing for the Win 3.x environment. Everything was *almost* the same as the MS MFC but not *quite* - the graphics were different, the buttons larger, the layout a bit off. It invariably confused the users - some applications looking slightly different, vaguely unfamiliar.
Apple was smart to avoid that trap. Indeed they invested a good deal of time & effort in building up to this sort of thing but then axed it when developers, trainers & UI specialists started getting nightmares working in just such an idiosyncratic world. Your Smalltalk-UI would (I expect) quickly become a maze of developers doing things in subtly "better" ways...
One can't argue that the MacOS is a particularly well-designed product. Its QuickDraw was innovative as was its built-in Toolbox. The artistry Apple has shown in honing their interface over the years has been amazing.
(I recall being so impressed when Apple rebuilt parts of their OS to make "Control Panels" look & act like every other application when they were internally not at all structured as such: Apple specifically presented a lie in order to make their GUI more *USER*-logically consistent.)
On the other hand it quickly became dated & proved remarkably resilient to overhaul. Much of the impetuous to improve has always come from outside Apple (file-sharing was originally a small freeware hack, multitasking wasn't in the MacOS (Lisa had it) but was introduced with a 3rd-party tool, reveal-triangles & nested menus came from apps that broke the UI guidelines, extensions & patching traps were never designed in & were always a nasty kluge that seriously compromised system stability.) Apple rarely was able to effect substatial changes in it's OS & yes, it remained static for long periods of time.
Indeed even with Apple's transition from m68xx to PPC much of the code remains emulated m68xx - surely a legacy they'd shake if they could.
But would have following Xerox's model been much better? I don't believe so. The Alto was no joy & the Star not one either. The machines that most fit the model you seem to desire would have been the Symbolic's LISP machines & even they never made any great strides in the OS model or GUI (though they were perfectly poised to do so.)
You might be interested at looking at the GNU HURD. One of it's potential strengths is it's relatively small "fundamental" OS & great flexibility in user-controlled traditionial-OS elements. While it's not the pervasive unified-model you seem to desire (indeed almost the opposite) it nonetheless promises unprecedented flexibility in OS tools / methods / models.
However we only have Adam Hinkley's word that HE was under these conditions.
I'm asked to believe this bright young man, 17 years old, with a family & lawyers & the skills to found a company is now unable to speak in his own defense.
At no point does he express concerns, speak to his father (who was closely involved in the business,) raise issues with his lawyers. He was online every night speaking with his pals, many of whom had been involved in Hotline themselves & were passioniate supporters yet he doesn't run reality-checks past them, express his concerns, ask for advice or assistance.
Instead he signs a set of contracts *very* advantagous to him and we don't hear anything negative until he wants to set terms.
It all sounds very self-serving to me.
It could be true but neither you nor I actually know. Clearly he wasn't able to convince authorities in Canada (where they're very concerned about this sort of thing) nor Australia (I have no idea - I live in Canada & the US, not Australia.)
You are so sure he's the victim & everyone else was a crook & a swindler. From what I've seen Adam Hinkley has presented no compelling evidence of this, just his childish accusations & the sycophantic repeating by his fans.
To me it looks the opposite - a young man who got greedy & attempted to walk off with stolen goods, twice.
I could be completely off-base. Indeed I openly acknowledge I likely am in many ways. However yours & others repeating how Adam Hinkley was screwed doesn't make it so & until something more substantive is presented your assertions don't mean much, however passionately repeated.
In the meantime it looks like it is all-moot - the legal systems of two countries have investigated & made their determinations: Adam Hinkley is responsible for the contracts he signed & thus was found in fault.